/OUT~Or~DOOKS> 

f^mff IN THE ^^8»!^^, 



^^^^^^ 



OUT-OF-DOORS 
IN THE 
HOLY LAND 



BOOKS BY HENRY VAN DYKE 

Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 


The Ruling Passion. Illustrated in color . 


S1.50 


The Blue Flower. Illustrated in color . . 


$1.50 






Outdoors in the Holy Land. Illustrated in 






$1.50 




$1.50 


Little Rivers. Illustrated in color .... 


$1.50 


Fisherman's Luck. Illustrated in color . 


$1.50 






The Builders, and Other Poems .... 


$1.00 




$1.00 


The Toiling of Felix, and Other Poems . 


$1.00 




The Gate of David, Jerusalem. 



OUT-OF-DOORS 

IN 

THE HOLY LAND 

IMPRESSIONS OF TRAVEL 
IN BODY AND SPIRIT 

BY 

HENRY VAN DYKE 

ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
MDCCCCVIII 



Copyright, 1908, by Charles Scribner's Sons 



Published November^ 1908 



I wo Uooies «et«iivtjv 

OCT 9 l^'^B 



So 

HOWARD CROSBY BUTLER 

MASTER OF MERWICK 
PROFESSOR OF ART AND ARCHEOLOGY 
WHO WAS A FRIEND TO THIS JOURNEY 
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
BY HIS FRIEND 
THE AUTHOR 



PREFACE 



For a long time, in the hopefulness and confidence 
of youth, I dreamed of going to Palestine. But that 
dream was denied, for want of money and leisure. 

Then, for a long time, in the hardening strain of 
early manhood, I was afraid to go to Palestine, lest 
the journey should prove a disenchantment, and 
some of my religious beliefs be rudely shaken, per- 
haps destroyed. But that fear was removed by a 
little voyage to the gates of death, where it was made 
clear to me that no belief is worth keeping unless it 
can bear the touch of reality. 

In that year of pain and sorrow, through a full 
surrender to the Di\dne Will, the hopefulness and 
confidence of youth came back to me. Since then it 
has been possible once more to wake in the morning 
with the feeling that the day might bring something 
new and wonderful and welcome, and to travel into 
the future with a whole and happy heart. 

This is what I call growing younger; though the 
ix 



PREFACE 

years increase, yet the burden of them is lessened, 
and the fear that Uf e will some day lead into an empty 
prison-house has been cast out by the incoming of 
the Perfect Love. 

So it came to pass that when a friend offered me, 
at last, the opportunity of going to Palestine if I 
would give him my impressions of travel for his mag- 
azine, I was glad to go. Partly because there was 
a piece of work, — a drama whose scene lies in 
Damascus and among the mountains of Samaria, — 
that I wanted to finish there; partly because of the 
expectancy that on such a journey any of the days 
might indeed bring something new and wonderful 
and welcome; but most of all because I greatly de- 
sired to live for a little while in the country of Jesus, 
hoping to learn more of the meaning of His life in 
the land where it was spent, and lost, and forever 
saved. 

Here, then, you have the history of this little 
book, reader: and if it pleases you to look further 
into its pages, you can see for yourself how far my 
dreams and hopes were realised. 

It is the record of a long journey in the spirit and 

X 



PREFACE 

a short voyage in the body. If you find here im- 
pressions that are Ughter, mingled with those that 
are deeper, that is because Hfe itself is really 
woven of such contrasted threads. Even on a 
pilgrimage small adventures happen. Of the elders 
of Israel on Sinai it is written, "They saw God and 
did eat and drink"; and the Apostle Paul was not 
too much engrossed with his mission to send for the 
cloak and books and parchments that he left behind 
at Troas. 

If what you read here makes you wish to go to 
the Holy Land, I shall be glad; and if you go 
in the right way, you surely will not be disappointed. 

But there are two things in the book which I 
would not have you miss. 

The first is the new conviction, — new at least to 
me, — ^that Christianity is an out-of-doors religion. 
From the birth in the grotto at Bethlehem (where 
Joseph and Mary took refuge because there was no 
room for them in the inn) to the crowning death 
on the hill of Calvary outside the city wall, all of its 
important events took place out-of-doors. Except 
the discourse in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, 

xi 



PREFACE 

all of its great words, from the sermon on the 
mount to the last commission to the disciples, were 
spoken in the open air. How shall we understand 
it unless we carry it under the free sky and inter- 
pret it in the companionship of nature ? 

The second thing that I would have you find here 
is the deepened sense that Jesus Himself is the great, 
the imperishable miracle. His words are spirit and 
life. His character is the revelation of the Perfect 
Love. This was the something new and wonderful 
and welcome that came to me in Palestine: a sim- 
pler, clearer, surer view of the human life of God. 

HENRY VAN DYKE. 

AVALON, 

June 10, 1908. 



xii 



CONTENTS 



^^3 , 

JL. 


X TU/V6ii6TS J Oy 


1 

X 


TT 

J.X. 


UrUt/itU U/U tU U t/l CLoU/Vtyllb 




TTT 

XX J.. 


J. lid KjrU/lod OJ ZjLOTL 


'±o 


IV. 


HT'iz'nnh nyid flip, l[ff)iJ7)f ni dlio^p,<i 


67 


V . 


x±Tl JldXLUTSiOTl lO JJclfiicfZoJll (ITUl XI (yUTOTl 




VT 


T^JiP i^pthtiip nyi/1 fJiP Sipmiil pJitp 

J- 11/0 _L Villi UVO UiHAJj VivC' kj O LJ IXiVyj 11/ 1 O 




VTT 

V XX. 


M ov^ f*vtr\ /7 'y? fi / r\i\*ft n 




VTTT 

Y XXX. 




XOi 




ihp llTnuTifn'}'!! 9 /rf SsnTnnT'tn 

JL ll/O ±KL U tV 1 VHAi (/ 1 to yj 1 t~Jkiilll/U/l ViJU 




X. 


Galilee and the Lake 


217 


XI. 


The Springs of Jordan 




XII. 


The Road to Damascus 


291 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Gate of David, Jerusalem Frontispiece 

Jaffa Facing page 14 

The 'port where King Solomon landed his cedar beams 
from Lebanon for the building of the Temple 

The Tall Tower of the Forty Martyrs at Ramleh 28 ^ 

A Street in Jerusalem 60 

A Street in Bethlehem 86 

The Market-place, Bethlehem 90 ^ 

Great Monastery of St. George 136 

Ruins of Jerash, Looking West 184 
PropylcBum and Temple terrace 

The Virgin's Fountain, Nazareth 232 

The Approach to Baniyas 276 

Bridge Over the River Litani 282 

A Small Bazaar in Damascus 316 



I 

TRAVELLERS' JOY 



I 



INVITATION 

Who would not go to Palestine ? 

To look upon that little stage where the drama of 
humanity has centred in such unforgetable scenes; 
to trace the rugged paths and ancient highways 
along which so many heroic and pathetic figures 
have travelled ; above all, to see with the eyes as well 
as with the heart 

" Those holy fields 
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet 
Which, nineteen hundred years ago, were nail'd 
For our advantage on the bitter cross'* — 

for the sake of these things who would not travel far 
and endure many hardships ? 

It is easy to find Palestine. It lies in the south- 
east corner of the Mediterranean coast, where the 
"sea in the midst of the nations," makes a great 
elbow between Asia Minor and Egypt. A tiny 
land, about a hundred and fifty miles long and 

3 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

sixty miles wide, stretching in a fourfold band from 
the foot of snowy Hermon and the Lebanons to the 
fulvous crags of Sinai: a green strip of fertile plain 
beside the sea, a blue strip of lofty and broken high- 
lands, a gray-and-yellow strip of sunken river-valley, 
a purple strip of high mountains rolling away to the 
Arabian desert. There are a dozen lines of steam- 
ships to carry you thither; a score of well-equipped 
agencies to conduct you on what they call "a, de luxe 
religious expedition to Palestine." 

But how to find the Holy Land — ah, that is an- 
other question. 

Fierce and mighty nations, hundreds of human 
tribes, have trampled through that coveted corner 
of the earth, contending for its possession: and 
the fury of their fighting has swept the fields as 
with fire. Temples and palaces have vanished like 
tents from the hillside. The ploughshare of havoc 
has been driven through the gardens of luxury. 
Cities have risen and crumbled upon the ruins of 
older cities. Crust after crust of pious legend has 
formed over the deep valleys; and tradition has set 
up its altars "upon every high hill and under every 

4 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

green tree." The rival claims of sacred places are 
fiercely disputed by churchmen and scholars. It is a 
poor prophet that has but one birthplace and one tomb. 

And now, to complete the confusion, the hur- 
ried, nervous, comfort-loving spirit of modern curi- 
osity has broken into Palestine, with railways from 
Jaffa to Jerusalem, from Mount Carmel to the Sea 
of Galilee, from Beirut to Damascus, — with macad- 
amized roads to Shechem and Nazareth and Tiberias, 
— with hotels at all the "principal points of inter- 
est," — and with every facility for doing Palestine in 
ten days, without getting away from the market-re- 
ports, the gossip of the table d'hote, and all that queer 
little complex of distracting habits which we call 
civilization. 

But the Holy Land which I desire to see can be 
found only by escaping from these things. I want to 
get away from them; to return into the long past, 
which is also the hidden present, and to lose myself 
a little there, to the end that I may find myself again. 
I want to make acquaintance with the soul of that 
land where so much that is strange and memorable 
and for ever beautiful has come to pass: to walk 

5 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

quietly and humbly, without much disputation or 
talk, in fellowship with the spirit that haunts those 
hills and vales, under the influence of that deep and 
lucent sky. I want to feel that ineffable charm which 
breathes from its mountains, meadows and streams: 
that charm which made the children of Israel in the 
desert long for it as a land flowing with milk and 
honey; and the great Prince Joseph in Eygpt require 
an oath of his brethren that they would lay his bones 
in the quiet vale of Shechem where he had fed his 
father's sheep; and the daughters of Jacob beside the 
rivers of Babylon mingle tears with their music when 
they remembered Zion. 

There was something in that land, surely, some 
personal and indefinable spirit of place, which was 
known and loved by prophet and psalmist, and most 
of all by Him who spread His table on the green 
grass, and taught His disciples while they walked 
the narrow paths waist-deep in rustling wheat, 
and spoke His messages of love from a little boat 
rocking on the lake, and found His asylum of prayer 
high on the mountainside, and kept His parting-hour 
with His friends in the moon-silvered quiet of the 

6 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

garden of olives. That spirit of place, that soul of the 
Holy Land, is what I fain would meet on my pilgrim- 
age, — ^for the sake of Him who interprets it in love. 
And I know well where to find it, — out-of-doors. 

I will not sleep under a roof in Palestine, but 
nightly pitch my wandering tent beside some foun- 
tain, in some grove or garden, on some vacant thresh- 
ing-floor, beneath the Syrian stars. I will not join 
myseK to any company of labelled tourists hurrying 
with much discussion on their appointed itinerary, 
but take into fellowship three tried and trusty com- 
rades, that we may enjoy solitude together. I will 
not seek to make any archaeological discovery, nor 
to prove any theological theory, but simply to ride 
through the highlands of Judea, and the valley of 
Jordan, and the mountains of Gilead, and the rich 
plains of Samaria, and the grassy hills of Galilee, 
looking upon the faces and the ways of the common 
folk, the labours of the husbandman in the field, the 
vigils of the shepherd on the hillside, the games of the 
children in the market-place, and reaping 

"The harvest of a quiet eye 
That broods and sleeps on his own heart." 
7 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

Four things, I know, are unchanged amid all the 
changes that have passed over the troubled and 
bewildered land. The cities have sunken into dust: 
the trees of the forest have fallen: the nations have 
dissolved. But the mountains keep their immutable 
outline: the liquid stars shine with the same light, 
move on the same pathways: and between the 
mountains and the stars, two other changeless 
things, frail and imperishable, — the flowers that flood 
the earth in every springtide, and the human heart 
where hopes and longings and affections and desires 
blossom immortally. Chiefly of these things, and of 
Him who gave them a new meaning, I will speak to 
you, reader, if you care to go with me out-of-doors 
in the Holy Land. 



8 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 



II 

MOVING PICTURES 

Of the voyage, made with all the swiftness and 
directness of one who seeks the shortest distance be- 
tween two points, little remains in memory except 
a few moving pictures, vivid and half -real, as in a 
kinematograph . 

First comes a long, swift ship, the Deidschland, 
quivering and rolling over the dull March waves of 
the Atlantic. Then the morning sunlight streams 
on the jagged rocks of the Lizard, where two wrecked 
steamships are hanging, and on the green headlands 
and gray fortresses of Plymouth. Then a soft, rosy 
sunset over the mole, the dingy houses, the tiled 
roofs, the cliffs, the misty-budded trees of Cherbourg. 
Then Paris at two in the morning: the lower quar- 
ters still stirring with somnambulistic life, the lines 
of lights twinkling placidly on the empty boulevards. 
Then a whirl through the Bois in a motor-car, a 
breakfast at Versailles with a merry little party of 
friends, a lazy walk through miles of picture-galleries 

9 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

without a guide-book or a care. Then the night ex- 
press for Italy, a gHmpse of the Alps at sunrise, snow 
all around us, the thick darkness of the Mount CenLs 
tunnel, the bright sunshine of Italian spring, terraced 
hillsides, clipped and pollarded trees, waking vine- 
yards and gardens, Turin, Genoa, Rome, arches of 
ruined aqueducts, snow upon the Southern Apen- 
nines, the blooming fields of Capua, umbrella-pines 
and silvery poplars, and at last, from my balcony at 
the hotel, the glorious cur\'ing panorama of the bay 
of Naples, Yesu\'ius without a cloud, and Capri like 
an azure lion couchant on the broad shield of the sea. 
So ends the first series of films, ten days from home. 

After an intermission of twenty-four hours, the 
second series begins on the white ship Oceana , an 
immense yacht, ploughing through the tranquil, 
sapphire Mediterranean, with ten passengers on 
board, and the band playing three times a day just 
as usual. Then comes the low line of the xAfrican 
coast, the lighthouse of Alexandria, the top of Pom- 
pey's Pillar showing over the white, modem city. 

HaK a dozen little rowboats meet us, well out at 
10 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

sea, buffeted and tossed by the waves : they are fish- 
ing: see! one of the men has a strike, he pulls in his 
trolling-line, hand over hand, very slowly, it seems, 
as the steamship rushes by. I lean over the side, run 
to the stern of the ship to watch, — ^hurrah, he pulls 
in a silvery fish nearly three feet long. Good luck to 
you, my Egyptian brother of the angle! 

Now a glimpse of the crowded, busy harbour of 
Alexandria, (recalling memories of fourteen years 
ago,) and a leisurely trans-shipment to the little Khe- 
divial steamer. Prince Abbas, with her Scotch offi- 
cers, Italian stewards, Maltese doctor, Turkish sail- 
ors, and freight-handlers who come from whatever 
places it has pleased Heaven they should be born in. 
The freight is variegated, and the third-class passen- 
gers are a motley crowd. 

A glance at the forward main-deck shows Egyp- 
tians in white cotton, and Turks in the red fez, and 
Arabs in white and brown, and coal-black Soudan- 
ese, and nondescript Levantines, and Russians 
in fur coats and lamb's- wool caps, and Greeks in 
blue embroidered jackets, and women in baggy trous- 
ers and black veils, and babies, and cats, and parrots. 

11 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

Here is a tall, venerable grandfather, with spectacles 
and a long gray beard, dressed in a black robe with 
a hood and a yellow scarf ; grave, patriarchal, imper- 
turbable: his little granddaughter, a pretty elf of a 
child, with flower-like face and shining eyes, dances 
hither and yon among the chaos of freight and lug- 
gage; but as the chill of evening descends she takes 
shelter between his knees, under the folds of his long 
robe, and, while he feeds her with bread and sweet- 
meats, keeps up a running comment of remarks and 
laughter at all around her, and the unspeakable 
solemnity of old Father Abraham's face is lit up, now 
and then, with the flicker of a resistless smile. 

Here are two bronzed Arabs of the desert, in 
striped burnoose and white kaftan, stretched out for 
the night upon their rugs of many colours. Between 
them lies their latest purchase, a brand-new patent 
carpet-sweeper, made in Ohio, and going, who knows 
where among the hills of Bashan. 

A child dies in the night, on the voyage; in the 
morning, at anchor in the mouth of the Suez Canal, 
we hear the carpenter hammering together a little 
pine coflan. All day Sunday the indescribable traffic 

12 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

of Port Said passes around us; ships of all nations 
coming and going; a big German Lloyd boat just 
home from India crowded with troops in khaki, 
band playing, flags flying; huge dredgers, sombre, 
oxlike-looking things, with lines of incredibly dirty 
men in fluttering rags running up the gang-planks 
with bags of coal on their backs; rowboats shuttUng 
to and fro between the ships and the huddled, tran- 
sient, modem town, which is made up of curiosity 
shops, hotels, business houses and dens of iniquity; 
a row of Egyptian sail boats, with high prows, low 
sides, long lateen yards, ranged along the entrance to 
the canal. At sunset we steam past the big statue of 
Ferdinand de Lesseps, standing far out on the break- 
water and pointing back with a dramatic gesture to 
his world-transforming ditch. Then we go dancing 
over the yellow waves into the full moonlight toward 
Palestine. 

In the early morning I clamber on deck into a 
thunderstorm: wild west wind, rolling billows, flying 
gusts of rain, low clouds hanging over the sand-hills 
of the coast: a harbourless shore, far as eye can see, a 

13 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

land that makes no concession to the ocean with bay 
or inlet, but cries, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no 
farther; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." 
There are the flat-roofed houses, and the orange 
groves, and the minaret, and the lighthouse of Jaffa, 
crowning its rounded hill of rock. We are tossing at 
anchor a mile from the shore. Will the boats come 
out to meet us in this storm, or must we go on to 
Haifa, fifty miles beyond ? Rumour says that the po- 
lice have refused to permit the boats to put out. But 
look, here they come, half a dozen open whale-boats, 
each manned by a dozen lusty, bare-legged, brown 
rowers, buffeting their way between the scattered 
rocks, leaping high on the crested waves. The chiefs 
of the crews scramble on board the steamer, identify 
the passengers consigned to the different tourist-agen- 
cies, sort out the baggage and lower it into the boats. 

My tickets, thus far, have been provided by the 
great Cook, and I fall to the charge of his head boat- 
man, a dusky demon of energy. A slippery climb 
down the swaying ladder, a leap into the arms of two 
sturdy rowers, a stumble over the wet thwarts, and I 

14 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

find myself in the stern sheets of the boat. A young 
Dutchman follows with stolid suddenness. Two 
Italian gentlemen, weeping, refuse to descend more 
than haK-way, climb back, and are carried on to 
Haifa. A German lady with a parrot in a cage comes 
next, and her anxiety for the parrot makes her forget 
to be afraid. Then comes a little Polish lady, evi- 
dently a bride; she shuts her eyes tight and drops 
into the boat, pale, silent, resolved that she will not 
scream: her husband follows, equally pale, and she 
clings indifferently to his hand and to mine, her eyes 
still shut, a pretty image of white courage. The boat 
pushes off; the rowers smite the waves with their 
long oars and sing "Halli — ^yallah — ^yah hallah"; 
the steersman high in the stern shouts unintelligible 
(and, I fear, profane) directions ; we are swept along 
on the tops of the waves, between the foaming rocks, 
drenched by spray and flying showers: at last we 
bump alongside the little quay, and climb out on 
the wet, gliddery stones. 

The kinematograph pictures are ended, for I am 
in Palestine, on the first of April, just fifteen days 
from home. 

15 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 



III 

RENDEZVOUS 

Will my friends be here to meet me, I wonder ? 
This is the question which presses upon me more 
closely than anything else, I must confess, as I set 
foot for the first time upon the sacred soil of Pales- 
tine. I know that this is not as it should be. All the 
conventions of travel require the pilgrim to experi- 
ence a strange curiosity and excitement, a profound 
emotion, "a supreme anguish," as an Italian writer 
describes it, "in approaching this land long dreamed 
about, long waited for, and almost despaired of." 

But the conventions of travel do not always cor- 
respond to the realities of the heart. Your first sight 
of a place may not be your first perception of it: that 
may come afterward, in some quiet, unexpected 
moment. Emotions do not follow a time-table; and 
I propose to tell no lies in this oook. My strongest 
feeling as I enter Jaffa is the desire to know whether 
my chosen comrades have come to the rendezvous 
at the appointed time, to begin our long ride together. 

16 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

It is a remote and uncertain combination, I grant 
you. The Patriarch, a tall, slender youth of seventy 
years, whose home is beside the Golden Gate of Cali- 
fornia, was wandering among the ruins of Sicily 
when I last heard from him. The Pastor and his 
wife, the Lady of Walla Walla, who live on the shores 
of Puget Sound, were riding camels across the pe- 
ninsula of Sinai and steamboating up the Nile. Have 
the letters, the cablegrams that were sent to them 
been safely delivered ? Have the hundreds of un- 
known elements upon which our combination de- 
pended been working secretly together for its suc- 
cess? Has our proposal been according to the 
supreme disposal, and have all the roads been kept 
clear by which we were hastening from three conti- 
nents to meet on the first day of April at the Hotel 
du Pare in Jaffa ? 

Yes, here are my three friends, in the quaint little 
garden of the hotel, with its purple-flowering vines 
of Bougainvillea, fragrant orange-trees, drooping 
palms, and long-tailed cockatoos drowsing on their 
perches. When people really know each other an 
unfamiliar meeting-place lends a singular intimacy 

17 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

and joy to the meeting. There is a surprise in it, no 
matter how long and carefully it has been planned. 
There are a thousand things to talk of, but at first 
nothing will come except the wonder of getting to- 
gether. The sight of the desired faces, unchanged 
beneath their new coats of tan, is a happy assurance 
that personality is not a dream. The touch of warm 
hands is a sudden proof that friendship is a reality. 

Presently it begins to dawn upon us that there is 
something wonderful in the place of our conjunction, 
and we realise dimly, — very dimly, I am sure, and 
yet with a certain vague emotion of reverence, — 
where we are. 

"We came yesterday," says the Lady, "and in 
the afternoon we went to see the House of Simon 
the Tanner, where they say the Apostle Peter 
lodged." 

" Did it look like the real house ?" 

"Ah," she answers smilingly, "how do I know.^ 
They say there are two of them. But what do I care ? 
It is certain that we are here. And I think that St. 
Peter was here once, too, whether the house he lived 
in is standing yet, or not." 

18 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

Yes, that is reasonably certain; and this is the 
place where he had his strange vision of a religion 
meant for all sorts and conditions of men. It is cer- 
tain, also, that this is the port where Solomon landed 
his beams of cedar from Lebanon for the building of 
the Temple, and that the Emperor Vespasian sacked 
the town, and that Richard Lionheart planted the 
banner of the crusade upon its citadel. But how far 
away and dreamlike it all seems, on this spring 
morning, when the wind is tossing the fronds of the 
palm-trees, and the gleams of sunshine are flying 
across the garden, and the last clouds of the broken 
thunderstorm are racing westward through the blue 
toward the highlands of Judea. 

Here is our new friend, the dragoman George 
Cavalcanty, known as "Telhami," the Bethlehemite, 
standing beside us in the shelter of the orange-trees: 
a trim, alert figure, in his belted suit of khaki and his 
riding-boots of brown leather. 

"Is everything ready for the journey, George ?" 

"Ever3i;hing is prepared, according to the instruc- 
tions you sent from Avalon. The tents are pitched a 
little beyond Latrun, twenty mUes away. The horses 

19 



TRAVELLERS' JOY 

are waiting at Ramleh. After you have had your 
mid-day breakfast, we will drive there in carriages, 
and get into the saddle, and ride to our own camp 
before the night falls." 



20 



A PSALM OF THE DISTANT ROAD 



Happy is the man that seeth the face of a friend in 

a far country: 
The darkness of his heart is melted in the rising of 

an inward joy. 

It is like the sound of music heard long ago and half 
forgotten: 

It is like the coming hack of birds to a wood that 
winter hath made hare. 

I knew not the sweetness of the fountain till I found 

it flowing in the desert: 
Nor the value of a friend till the meeting in a lonely 

land. 

The multitude of mankind had hewildered me and 

oppressed me: 
And I said to God, Why hast thou made the world 
so wide? 

But when my friend came the wideness of the world 

had no more terror: 
Because we were glad together among men who knew 

us not. 

21 



I was slowly reading a book that was written in 

a strange language: 
And suddenly I came upon a page in mine own 

familiar tongue. 

This was the heart of my friend that quietly under- 
stood me: 

The open heart whose meaning was clear without a 
word. 

0 my God whose love followeth all thy pilgrims 

and strangers: 

1 praise thee for the comfort of comrades on a distant 

road. 



22 



II 

GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 



I 



"THE EXCELLENCY OF SHARON" 

You understand that what we had before us in 
this first stage of our journey was a very simple 
proposition. The distance from Jaffa to Jerusalem 
is fifty miles by railway and forty miles by carriage- 
road. Thousands of pilgrims and tourists travel it 
every year; and most of them now go by the train in 
about four hours, with advertised stoppages of three 
minutes at Lydda, eight minutes at Ramleh, ten min- 
utes at Sejed, and unadvertised delays at the con- 
venience of the engine. But we did not wish to get our 
earliest glimpse of Palestine from a car- window, nor 
to begin our travels in a mechanical way. The first 
taste of a journey often flavours it to the very end. 

The old highroad, which is now much less fre- 
quented than formerly, is very fair as far as Ramleh; 
and beyond that it is still navigable for vehicles, 
though somewhat broken and billowy. Our plan, 
therefore, was to drive the first ten miles, where the 

25 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

road was flat and uninteresting, and then ride the 
rest of the way. This would enable us to avoid the 
advertised rapidity and the uncertain delays of the 
railway, and bring us quietly through the hills, 
about the close of the second day, to the gates of 
Jerusalem. 

The two victorias rattled through the streets of 
Jaffa, past the low, flat-topped Oriental houses, the 
queer little open shops, the orange-groves in full 
bloom, the palm-trees waving their plumes over gar- 
den-walls, and rolled out upon the broad highroad 
across the fertile, gently undulating Plain of Sharon. 
On each side were the neat, well-cultivated fields and 
vegetable-gardens of the German colonists belonging 
to the sect of the Templers. They are a people of 
antique theology and modern agriculture. Believing 
that the real Christianity is to be found in the Old 
Testament rather than in the New, they propose to 
begin the social and religious reformation of the world 
by a return to the programme of the Minor Prophets. 
But meantime they conduct their farming operations 
in a very profitable way. Their grain-fields, their 
fruit-orchards, their vegetable-gardens are trim and 

26 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

orderly, and they make an excellent wine, which they 
call "The Treasure of Zion." Their effect upon the 
landscape, however, is conventional. 

But in spite of the presence and prosperity of the 
Templers, the spirit of the scene through which we 
passed was essentially Oriental. The straggling 
hedges of enormous cactus, the rows of plumy euca- 
lyptus-trees, the budding figs and mulberries, gave 
it a semi-tropical touch and along the highway we 
encountered fragments of the leisurely, dishevelled, 
dignified East: grotesque camels, pensive donkeys 
carrying incredible loads, flocks of fat-tailed sheep 
and lop-eared goats, bronzed peasants in flowing 
garments, and white-robed women with veiled faces. 

Beneath the tall tower of the forty martyrs at Ram- 
leh (Mohammedan or Christian, their names are for- 
gotten) we left the carriages, loaded our luggage on 
the three pack-mules, mounted our saddle-horses, 
and rode on across the plain, one of the fruitful 
gardens and historic battle-fields of the world. Here 
the hosts of the Israelites and the Philistines, the 
Egjrptians and the Romans, the Persians and the 
Arabs, the Crusaders and the Saracens, have marched 

27 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

and contended. But as we passed through the sun- 
showers and rain-showers of an April afternoon, all 
was tranquillity and beauty on every side. The roll- 
ing fields were embroidered with innumerable flow- 
ers. The narcissus, the "rose of Sharon," had faded. 
But the little blue "lilies-of -the- valley" were there, 
and the pink and saffron mallows, and the yellow 
and white daisies, and the violet and snow of the 
drooping cyclamen, and the gold of the genesta, and 
the orange-red of the pimpernel, and, most beautiful 
of all, the glowing scarlet of the numberless anem- 
ones. Wide acres of young wheat and barley glis- 
tened in the light, as the mnd-waves rippled through 
their short, silken blades. There were few trees, 
except now and then an olive-orchard or a round- 
topped carob with its withered pods. 

The highlands of Judea lay stretched out along 
the eastern horizon, a line of azure and amethystine 
heights, changing colour and seeming almost to 
breathe and move as the cloud shadows fleeted over 
them, and reaching away northward and southward 
as far as eye could see. Rugged and treeless, save 
for a clump of oaks or terebinths planted here or 

28 



The Tall Tower of the Forty Martyrs at Ramleh. 



1 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

there around some. Mohammedan saint's tomb, they 
would have seemed forbidding but that their slopes 
were clothed with the tender herbage of spring, their 
outlines varied with deep valleys and blue gorges, 
and all their mighty bulwarks jewelled right royally 
with the opalescence of sunset. 

In a hollow of the green plain to the left we could 
see the white houses and the yellow church tower of 
Lydda, the supposed burial-place of Saint George 
of Cappadocia, who killed the dragon and became 
the patron saint of England. On a conical hill to the 
right shone the tents of the Scotch explorer who is 
excavating the ancient city of Gezer, which was the 
dowry of Pharaoh's daughter when she married 
King Solomon. City, did I say ? At least four cities 
are packed one upon another in that grassy mound, 
the oldest going back to the flint age; and yet if you 
should examine their site and measure their ruins, 
you would feel sure that none of them could ever 
have amounted to anything more than what we 
should call a poor little town. 

It came upon us gently but irresistibly that after- 
noon, as we rode easily across the land of the Philis- 

29 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

tines in a few hours, that we had never really read 
the Old Testament as it ought to be read, — as a book 
written in an Oriental atmosphere, filled with the 
glamour, the imagery, the magniloquence of the 
East. Unconsciously we had been reading it as if it 
were a collection of documents produced in Heidel- 
berg, Germany, or in Boston, Massachusetts: pre- 
cise, literal, scientific. 

We had been imagining the Philistines as a 
mighty nation, and their land as a vast territory 
filled with splendid cities and ruled by powerful 
monarchs. We had been trying to understand 
and interpret the stories of their conflict with Israel 
as if they had been written by a Western war-cor- 
respondent, careful to verify all his statistics and 
meticulous in the exact description of all his events. 
This view of things melted from us with a gradual 
surprise as we realised that the more deeply we en- 
tered into the poetry, the closer we should come to 
the truth, of the narrative. Its moral and religious 
meaning is firm and steadfast as the mountains 
round about Jerusalem; but even as those moun- 
tains rose before us glorified, uplifted, and bejewelled 

30 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

by the vague splendours of the sunset, so the form 
of the history was enlarged and its colours irradiated 
by the figurative spirit of the East. 

There at our feet, bathed in the beauty of the even- 
ing air, lay the Valley of Aijalon, where Joshua fought 
with the "five kings of the Amorites," and broke 
them and chased them. The "kings" were head- 
men of scattered villages, chiefs of fierce and ragged 
tribes. But the fighting was hard, and as Joshua led 
his wild clansmen down upon them from the ascent 
of Beth-horon, he feared the day might be too short 
to win the victory. So he cheered the hearts of his 
men with an old war-song from the Book of Jasher. 

"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; 

And thou, moon, in the Valley of Aijalon. 

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed. 

Until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies.*' 

Does any one suppose that this is intended to teach 
us that the sun moves and that on this day his course 
was arrested ? Must we believe that the whole solar 
system was dislocated for the sake of this battle.^ 
To understand the story thus is to misunderstand its 
vital spirit. It is poetry, imagination, heroism. By 

31 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

the new courage that came into the hearts of Israel 
with their leader's song, the Lord shortened the con- 
flict to fit the day, and the sunset and the moonrise 
saw the Valley of Aijalon swept clean of Israel's foes. 

As we passed through the wretched, mud-built vil- 
lage of Latrun (said to be the birthplace of the Peni- 
tent Thief), a dozen long-robed Arabs were earnestly 
discussing some question of municipal interest in the 
grassy market-place. They were as grave as the 
storks, in their solemn plumage of black and white, 
which were parading philosophically along the edge 
of a marsh to our right. A couple of jackals slunk 
furtively across the road ahead of us in the dusk. 
A kafila of long-necked camels undulated over the 
plain. The shadows fell more heavily over cactus- 
hedge and olive-orchard as we turned down the hill. 

In the valley night had come. The large, trem- 
bling stars were strewn through the vault above us, 
and rested on the dim ridges of the mountains, and 
shone reflected in the puddles of the long road like fal- 
len jewels. The lights of Latrun, if it had any, were 
already out of sight behind us. Our horses were 
weary and began to stumble. Where was the camp ? 

32 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

Look, there is a light, bobbing along the road 
toward us. It is Youssouf, our faithful major-domo, 
come out with a lantern to meet us. A few rods far- 
ther through the mud, and we turn a corner beside 
an acacia hedge and the ruined arch of an ancient 
well. There, in a little field of flowers, close to the 
tiniest of brooks, our tents are waiting for us with 
open doors. The candles are burning on the table. 
The rugs are spread and the beds are made. The 
dinner-table is laid for four, and there is a bright 
bunch of flowers in the middle of it. We have seen 
the excellency of Sharon and the moon is shining for 
us on the Valley of Aijalon. 



II 

"THE STRENGTH OF THE HILLS" 

It is no hardship to rise early in camp. At the 
windows of a house the daylight often knocks as an 
unwelcome messenger, rousing the sleeper with a 
sudden call. But through the roof and the sides of 
a tent it enters genilj and irresistibly, embracing you 

33 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

mth soft arms, laying rosy touches on your eyelids; 
and while your dream fades you know that you are 
awake and it is already day. 

As we lift the canyas curtains and come out of 
our pa\dlions, the sun is just topping the eastern 
hills, and all the field around us glittering with im- 
mense drops of dew. On the top of the ruined arch 
beside the camp our Arab watchman, hired from the 
yillage of Latriin as we passed, is still perched mo- 
tionless, "vsTapped in his flowing rags, holding his long 
gun across his knees. 

"Salam ^aleikum, yd. ghapr!'' I say, and though 
my Arabic is doubtless astonishingly bad, he knows 
my meaning; for he answers gravely, "'Aleikum es- 
saldm! — And with you be peace!" 

It is indeed a peaceful day in which our journey to 
Jerusalem is completed. 'LesLYing the tents and im- 
pedimenta in charge of Youssouf and Shukari the 
cook, and the muleteers, we are in the saddle by 
seyen o'clock, and riding into the narrow entrance 
of the Wadi 'Ali. It is a long, steep valley leading 
into the heart of the hills. The sides are ribbed with 
rocks, among which the cyclamens grow in profu- 

34 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

sion. A few olives are scattered along the bottom 
of the vale, and at the tomb of the Imam * Ali there is 
a grove of large trees. At the summit of the pass we 
rest for half an hour, to give our horses a breathing- 
space, and to refresh our eyes with the glorious view 
westward over the tumbled country of the Shephelah, 
the opalescent Plain of Sharon, the sand-hills of the 
coast, and the broad blue of the Mediterranean. 
Northward and southward and eastward the rocky 
summits and ridges of Judea roll away. 

Now we understand what the Psalmist means by 
ascribing "the strength of the hills" to Jehovah; 
and a new light comes into the song : 

"As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, 
So Jehovah is round about his people." 

These natural walls and terraces of gray limestone 
have the air of antique fortifications and watch- 
towers of the border. They are truly "munitions of 
rocks." Chariots and horsemen could find no field 
for their manoeuvres in this broken and perpendicular 
country. Entangled in these deep and winding val- 
leys by which they must climb up from the plain, the 

35 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

invaders would be at the mercy of the light infantr}^ of 
the highlands, who would roll great stones upon them 
as they passed through the naiTow defiles, and break 
their ranks by fierce and sudden downward rushes 
as they toiled panting up the steep hillsides. It was 
this strength of the hills that the children of Israel 
used for the defence of Jerusalem, and by this they 
were able to resist and defy the Phihstines, whom 
they could never wholly conquer. 

Yonder on the hillside, as we ride onward, we see 
a reminder of that old tribal warfare between the 
people of the highlands and the people of the plains. 
That gray village, perched upon a rocky ridge above 
thick olive-orchards and a deliciously green valley, 
is the ancient Kirjath-Jearim, where the Ark of 
Jehovah was hidden for twenty years, after the Phil- 
istines had sent back this perilous trophy of their 
victory over the sons of EH, being terrified by the 
pestilence and disaster that followed its possession. 
The men of Beth-shemesh, to whom it was first re- 
turned, were afraid to keep it, because they also had 
been smitten with death when they dared to peep 
into this dreadful box. But the men of Kirjath- 

36 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

Jearim were at once bolder and wiser, so they "came 
and fetched up the Ark of Jehovah, and brought it 
into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and set apart 
Eleazar, his son, to keep the Ark of Jehovah." 

What strange vigils in that little hilltop cottage 
where the young man watches over this precious, dan- 
gerous, gilded coffer, while Saul is winning and los- 
ing his kingdom in a turmoil of blood and sorrow 
and madness, forgetful of Israel's covenant with the 
Most High! At last comes King David, from his 
newly won stronghold of Zion, seeking eagerly for 
this lost symbol of the people's faith. "Lo, we 
heard of it at Ephratah; we found it in the field of the 
wood." So the gray stone cottage on the hilltop gave 
up its sacred treasure, and David carried it away 
with festal music and dancing. But was Eleazar 
glad, I wonder, or sorry, that his long vigil was 
ended ? 

To part from a care is sometimes like losing a 
friend. 

I confess that it is difficult to make these ancient 
stories of peril and adventure, (or even the modern 
history of Abu Ghosh the robber-chief of this village 

37 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

a hundred years ago), seem real to us to-day. Every- 
thing around us is so safe and tranquil, and, in spite 
of its novelty, so familiar. The road descends steeply 
with long curves and windings into the Wadi Beit 
Hanina. We meet and greet many travellers, on 
horseback, in carriages and afoot, natives and pil- 
grims, German colonists, French priests, Italian 
monks, English tourists and explorers. It is a pleas- 
ant game to guess from an approaching pilgrim's 
looks whether you should salute him with " Gtiien 
Morgen,'' or ^^Buon^ Giorno,'' or Bon jour, m'sieur." 
The country people ansv\^er your salutation with a 
pretty phrase: "NeJiarak said umuharak — May 
your day be happy and blessed." 

At Kaloniyeh, in the bottom of the valley, there is 
a prosperous settlement of German Jews; and the 
gardens and orchards are flourishing. There is also 
a little wayside inn, a rude stone building, with a ter- 
race around it; and there, \Aih. apricots and plums 
blossoming beside us, we eat our lunch al fresco, and 
watch our long pack-train, with the camp and bag- 
gage, come winding down the hill and go tinkling 
past us toward Jerusalem. 

38 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

The place is very friendly; we are in no haste to 
leave it. A few miles to the southward, sheltered in 
the lap of a rounding hill, we can see the tall cj^ress- 
trees and quiet gardens of *Ain Karim, the village 
where John the Baptist was born. It has a singular 
air of attraction, seen from a distance, and one of the 
sweetest stories in the world is associated with it. 
For it was there that the young bride Mary visited 
her older cousin Elizabeth, — ^you remember the ex- 
quisite picture of the " Visitation " by Albertinelli in 
the Uffizi at Florence, — and the joy of coming 
motherhood in these two women's hearts spoke from 
each to each like a bell and its echo. Would the 
birth of Jesus, the character of Jesus, have been 
possible unless there had been the virginal and ex- 
pectant soul of such a woman as Mary, ready to wel- 
come His coming with her song.^^ "My soul doth 
magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in 
God my Saviour." Does not the advent of a higher 
manhood always wait for the hope and longing of a 
nobler womanhood ^ 

The chiming of the bells of St. John floats faintly 
and silverly across the valley as we leave the shelter 

39 



\ 

I 

GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

of the wayside rest-house and mount for the last stage 
of our upward journey. The road ascends steeply. 
Nestled in the ravine to our left is the grizzled and 
dilapidated village of Lifta, a town with an evil 
reputation. 

"These people sold all their land," says George 
the dragoman, "twenty years ago, sold all the fields, 
gardens, olive-groves. Now they are dirty and lazy 
in that village, — all thieves!" 

Over the crest of the hill the red-tiled roofs of the 
first houses of Jerusalem are beginning to appear. 
They are houses of mercy, it seems: one an asylum 
for the insane, the other a home for the aged poor. 
Passing them, we come upon schools and hospital 
buildings and other evidences of the charity of the 
Rothschilds toward their own people. All around 
us are villas and consulates, and rows of freshly built 
houses for Jewish colonists. 

This is not at all the way that we had imagined to 
ourselves the first sight of the Holy City. All here is 
half -European, unromantic, not very picturesque. 
It may not be "the New Jerusalem," but it is cer- 
tainly a modern Jerusalem. Here, in these com- 

40 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

fortably commonplace dwellings, is almost half the 
present population of the city; and rows of new 
houses are rising on every side. 

But look down the southward-sloping road. There 
is the sight that you have imagined and longed to see: 
the brown battlements, the white-washed houses, the 
flat roofs, the slender minarets, the many-coloured 
domes of the ancient city of David, and Solomon, 
and Hezekiah, and Herod, and Omar, and Godfrey, 
and Saladin, — but never of Christ. That great black 
dome is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The one 
beyond it is the Mosque of Omar. Those golden 
bulbs and pinnacles beyond the city are the Greek 
Church of Saint Mary Magdalen on the side of the 
Mount of Olives ; and on the top of the lofty ridge 
rises the great pointed tower of the Russians from 
which a huge bell booms out a deep-toned note of 
welcome. 

On every side we see the hospices and convents 

and churches and palaces of the different sects of 

Christendom. The streets are full of people and 

carriages and beasts of burden. The dust rises 

around us. We are tired with the trab, trab, trab of 

41 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

our horses' feet upon the hard highroad. Let us not 
go into the confusion of the city, but ride quietly down 
to the left into a great olive-grove, outside the Da- 
mascus Gate. 

Here our white tents are pitched among the trees, 
with the dear flag of our home flying over them. 
Here we shall find leisure and peace to unite our 
hearts, and bring our thoughts into tranquil har- 
mony, before we go into the bewildering city. Here 
the big stars will look kindly down upon us through 
the silvery leaves, and the sounds of human turmoil 
and contention will not trouble us. The distant 
booming of the bell on the Mount of Olives will 
mark the night-hours for us, and the long-drawn 
plaintive call of the muezzin from the minaret of the 
little mosque at the edge of the grove will wake us 
to the sunrise. 



42 



\ 



A PSALM OF THE WELCOME TENT 

This is the thanksgiving of the weary: 
The song of him that is ready to rest. 

It is good to be glad when the day is declining: 
And the setting of the sun is like a word of 'peace, 

TJie stars look kindly on the close of a journey: 
The tent says welcome when the day^s march is done. 

For now is the time of the laying down of burdens: 
And the cool hour cometh to them that have borne 
the heat. 

I have rejoiced greatly in labour and adventure: 
My heart hath been enlarged in the spending of my 
strength. 

Now it is all gone yet I am not impoverished: 
For thus only may I inherit tJie treasure of repose. 

Blessed be the Lord that teacheth my hands to un- 
close and my fingers to loosen: 

He also giveth comfort to the feet that are washed 
from the dust of the way. 

43 



Blessed be the Lwd that maketh my meat at nightfall 
savoury: 

And filleth my evening cup with the wine of good 
cheer. 

Blessed be the Lord that maketh me happy to be 
quiet: 

Even as a child that cometh softly to his mother* s 
lap. 

O God thou faintest not neither is thy strength worn 

away with labour: 
But it is good for us to be weary that we may obtain 

thy gift of rest. 



44 



Ill 

THE GATES OF ZION 



I 



A CITY THAT IS SET ON A HILL 

Out of the medley of our first impressions of Je- 
rusalem one fact emerges like an island from the sea : 
it is a city that is lifted up. No river; no harbour; 
no encircling groves and gardens; a site so lonely 
and so lofty that it breathes the very spirit of isola- 
tion and proud self-reliance. 

" Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth 
Is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north 
The city of the great King." 

Thus sang the Hebrew poet; and his song, like all 
true poetry, has the accuracy of the clearest vision. 
For this is precisely the one beauty that crowns 
Jerusalem: the beauty of a high place and all that 
belongs to it: clear sky, refreshing air, a fine out- 
look, and that indefinable sense of exultation that 
comes into the heart of man when he climbs a little 
nearer to the stars. 

Twenty-five hundred feet above the level of the 
47 



THE GATES OF ZION 

sea is not a great height; but I can think of no other 
ancient and world-famous city that stands as high. 
Along the mountainous plateau of Judea, between 
the sea-coast plain of Philistia and the sunken valley 
of the Jordan, there is a line of sacred sites, — Beer- 
sheba, Hebron, Bethlehem, Bethel, Shiloh, Shechem. 
Each of them marks the place where a town grew up 
around an altar. The central link in this chain of 
shrine-cities is Jerusalem. Her form and outline, 
her relation to the landscape and to the land, are 
unchanged from the days of her greatest glory. The 
splendours of her Temple and her palaces, the glitter 
of her armies, the rich colour and glow of her abound- 
ing wealth, have vanished. But though her gar- 
ments are frayed and weather-worn, though she is an 
impoverished and dusty queen, she still keeps her 
proud position and bearing; and as you approach 
her by the ancient road along the ridges of Judea 
you see substantially what Sennacherib, and Nebu- 
chadnezzar, and the Roman Titus must have seen. 

"The sides of the north" slope gently down to the 
huge gray wall of the city, with its many towers and 
gates. Within those bulwarks, which are thirty- 

48 



THE GATES OF ZION 

eight feet high and two and a half miles in circum- 
ference, " Jerusalem is builded as a city that is com- 
pact together," covering with her huddled houses 
and crooked, narrow streets, the two or three rounded 
hills and shallow depressions in which the northern 
plateau terminates. South and east and west, the 
valley of the Brook Kidron and the Valley of Himmon 
surround the city wall with a dry moat three or four 
hundred feet deep. 

Imagine the knuckles of a clenched fist, extended 
toward the south: that is the site of Jerusalem, im- 
pregnable, (at least in ancjent warfare), from all sides 
except the north, where the wrist joins it to the higher 
tableland. This northern approach, open to Ass}Tia, 
and Babylon, and Damascus, and Persia, and Greece, 
and Rome, has always been the weak point of Je- 
rusalem. She was no unassailable fortress of natural 
strength, but a city lifted up, a lofty shrine, whose 
refuge and salvation were in Jehovah, — in the faith, 
the loyalty, the courage which flowed into the heart 
of her people from their religion. When these failed, 
she fell. 

Jerusalem is no longer, and never again will be, 
49 



THE GATES OF ZION 

the capital of an earthly kingdom. But she is still 
one of the high places of the world, exalted in the 
imagination and the memory of Jews and Christians 
and Mohammedans, a metropolis of infinite human 
hopes and longings and devotions. Hither come the 
innumerable companies of foot-weary pilgrims, 
climbing the steep roads from the sea-coast, from 
the Jordan, from Bethlehem, — pilgrims who seek 
the place of the Crucifixion, pilgrims who would 
weep beside the walls of their vanished Temple, pil- 
grims who desire to pray where Mohammed prayed. 
Century after century these human throngs have 
assembled from far countries and toiled upward to 
this open, lofty plateau, where the ancient city rests 
upon the top of the closed hand, and where the ever- 
changing winds from the desert and the sea sweep 
and shift over the rocky hilltops, the mute, gray 
battlements, and the domes crowned with the cross, 
the crescent, and the star. 

"The wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest 
the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, 
nor w^hither it goeth; so is every one that is born of 
the Spirit." 

50 



THE GATES OF ZION 

The mystery of the heart of mankind, the spiritual 
airs that breathe through it, the desires and aspira- 
tions that impel men in their journeyings, the com- 
mon hopes that bind them together in companies, 
the fears and hatreds that array them in warring 
hosts, — there is no place in the world to-day where 
you can feel all this so deeply, so inevitably, so over- 
whelmingly, as at the Gates of Zion. 

It is a feeling of confusion, at first: a bewildering 
sense of something vast and old and secret, speaking 
many tongues, taking many forms, yet never fully 
revealing its source and its meaning. The Jews, 
Mohammedans, and Christians who flock to those 
gates are alike in their sincerity, in their devotion, in 
the spirit of sacrifice that leads them on their pil- 
grimage. Among them all there are hypocrites and 
bigots, doubtless, but there are also earnest and de- 
vout souls, seeking something that is higher than 
themselves, "a city set upon a hill." Why do they 
not understand one another .^^ Why do they fight 
and curse one another.? Do they not all come to 
humble themselves, to pray, to seek the light ? 

Dark walls that embrace so many tear-stained, 
51 



THE GATES OF ZION 

blood-stained, holy and dishonoured shrines! And 
you, narrow and gloomy gates, through whose portals 
so many myriads of mankind have passed with their 
swords, their staves, their burdens and their palm- 
branches! What songs of triumph you have heard, 
what yells of battle-rage, what moanings of despair, 
what murmurs of hopes and gratitude, what cries of 
anguish, what bursts of careless, happy laughter, — 
all borne upon the wind that bloweth where it will 
across these bare and rugged heights. We will not 
seek to enter yet into the mysteries that you hide. 
We will tarry here for a while in the open sunlight, 
where the cool breeze of April stirs the olive-groves 
outside the Damascus Gate. We will tranquillize 
our thoughts, — perhaps we may even find them 
growing clearer and surer, — among the simple cares 
and pleasures that belong to the life of every day; 
the life which must have food when it is hungry, 
and rest when it is weary, and a shelter from the 
storm and the night; the life of those who are all 
strangers and sojourners upon the earth, and whose 
richest houses and strongest cities are, after all, but 
a little longer-lasting tents and camps. 

52 



THE GATES OF ZION 



II 

THE CAMP IN THE OLIVE-GROVE 

The place of our encampment is peaceful and 
friendly, without being remote or secluded. The 
grove is large and free from all undergrowth: the 
trunks of the ancient olive-trees are gnarled and 
massive, the foliage soft and tremulous. The corner 
that George has chosen for us is raised above the 
road by a kind of terrace, so that it is not too easily 
accessible to the curious passer-by. Across the road 
we see a gray stone wall, and above it the roof of the 
Anglican Bishop's house, and the schools, from 
which a sound of shrill young voices shouting in play 
or chanting in unison rises at intervals through the 
day. The ground on which we stand is slightly fur- 
rowed with the little ridges of last year's ploughing: 
but it has not yet been broken this spring, and it is 
covered with millions of infinitesimal flowers, blue 
and purple and yellow and white, like tiny pansies 
run wild. 

The four tents, each circular and about fifteen feet 
58 



THE GATES OF ZION 

in diameter, are arranged in a crescent. The one 
nearest to the road is for the kitchen and service; 
there Shukari, our Maronite chef, in his white cap 
and apron, turns out an admirable six-course dinner 
on a portable charcoal range not three feet square. 
Around the door of this tent there is much coming 
and going: edibles of all kinds are brought for sale; 
visitors squat in sociable conversation; curious chil- 
dren hang about, watching the proceedings, or wait- 
ing for the favours which a good cook can bestow. 

The next tent is the dining-room; the huge wooden 
chests of the canteen, full of glass and china and 
table-linen and new Britannia-ware, which shines 
like silver, are placed one on each side of the en- 
trance; behind the central tent-pole stands the din- 
ing-table, with two chairs at the back and one at each 
end, so that we can all enjoy the view through the 
open door. The tent is lofty and lined with many- 
coloured cotton cloth, arranged in elaborate patterns, 
scarlet and green and yellow and blue. When the 
four candles are lighted on the well-spread table, and 
Youssouf the Greek, in his embroidered jacket and 
baggy blue breeches, comes in to serve the dinner, it 

54 



THE GATES OF ZION 

is quite an Oriental scene. His assistant, Little 
Youssouf , the Copt, squats outside of the tent, at one 
side of the door, to wash up the dishes and polish the 
Britannia-ware. 

The two other tents are of the same pattern and 
the same gaudy colours within: each of them con- 
tains two little iron bedsteads, two Turkish rugs, • 
two washstands, one dressing-table, and such bag- 
gage as we had imagined necessary for our comfort, 
piled around the tent-pole, — this by way of pre- 
caution, lest some misguided hand should be tempted 
to slip under the canvas at night and abstract an un- 
considered trifle lying near the edge of the tent. 

Of our own men I must say that we never had a 
suspicion, either of their honesty or of their good- 
humour. Not only the four who had most imme- 
diately to do with us, but also the two chief muleteers, 
Mohammed 'Ali and Mousa, and the songful boy, 
Mohammed el Nasan, who warbled an interminable 
Arabian ditty all day long, and Paris and the two 
other assistants, were models of fidelity and willing 
service. They did not quarrel (except once, over the 
division of the mule-loads, in the mountains of Gil- 

55 



THE GATES OF ZION 

ead); they got us into no difficulties and subjected 
us to no blackmail from humbugging Bedouin chiefs. 
They are of a picturesque motley in costume and of 
a bewildering variety in creed — Anglican, Catholic, 
Coptic, IMaronite, Greek, Mohammedan, and one of 
whom the others say that "he belongs to no religion, 
but sings beautiful Persian songs." Yet, so far as 
we are concerned, they all do the things they ought 
to do and leave undone the things they ought not to 
do, and their way with us is peace. Much of this, 
no doubt, is due to the wisdom, tact, and firmness of 
George the Bethlehemite, the best of dragomans. 

We have many visitors at the camp, but none un- 
welcome. The American Consul, a genial scholar 
who knows Palestine by heart and has made valua- 
ble contributions to the archseolog}^ of Jerusalem, 
comes with his wife to dine with us in the open air. 
George's gentle wife and his two bright little boys, 
Howard and Robert, are with us often. Mission- 
aries come to tell us of their labours and trials. An 
Arab hunter, with his long flintlock musket, brings 
us beautiful gray partridges which he has shot among 
the near-by hills. The stable-master comes day 

56 



THE GATES OF ZION 

after day with strings of horses galloping through the 
grove; for our first mounts were not to our liking, 
and we are determined not to start on our longer 
ride until we have found steeds that suit us. Peas- 
ants from the country round about bring all sorts of 
things to sell — vegetables, and lambs, and pigeons, 
and old coins, and embroidered caps. 

There are two men ploughing in a vineyard be- 
hind the camp, beyond the edge of the grove. The 
plough is a crooked stick of wood which scratches the 
surface of the earth. The vines are lying flat on the 
ground, still leafless, closely pruned: they look like 
big black snakes. 

Women of the city, dressed in black and blue silks, 
with black mantles over their heads, come out in the 
afternoon to picnic among the trees. They sit in 
little circles on the grass, smoking cigarettes and eat- 
ing sweetmeats. If they see us looking at them they 
draw the corners of their mantles across the lower 
part of their faces; but when they think themselves 
unobserved they drop their veils and regard us curi- 
ously with lustrous brown eyes. 

One morning a procession of rustic women and 
57 



THE GATES OF ZION 

girls, singing with shrill voices, pass the camp on 
their way to the city to buy the bride's clothes for a 
wedding. At nightfall they return singing yet more 
loudly, and accompanied by men and boys firing 
guns into the air and shouting. 

Another day a crowd of villagers go by. Their old 
Sheikh rides in the midst of them, with his white-and' 
gold turban, his long gray beard, his flowing robes of 
rich silk. He is mounted on a splendid white Arab 
horse, with arched neck and flaunting tail; and a 
beautiful, gaily dressed little boy rides behind him 
with both arms clasped around the old man's waist. 
They are going up to the city for the Mohammedan 
rite of circumcision. 

Later in the day a Jewish funeral comes hurrying 
through the grove: some twenty or thirty men in 
flat caps trimmed with fur and gabardines of cotton 
velvet, purple, or yellow, or pink, chanting psalms 
as they march, with the body of the dead man 
wrapped in linen cloth and carried on a rude bier on 
their shoulders. They seem in haste, (because the 
hour is late and the burial must be made before sun- 
set), perhaps a little indifferent, or almost joyful. 

58 



THE GATES OF ZION 

Certainly there is no sign of grief in their looks or 
their voices; for among them it is counted a fortu- 
nate thing to die in the Holy City and to be buried 
on the southern slope of the Valley of Jehoshaphat, 
where Gabriel is to blow his trumpet for the resur- 
rection. 

Ill 

IN THE STREETS OF JERUSALEM 

Outside the gates we ride, for the roads which 
encircle the city wall and lead off to the north and 
south and east and west, are fairly broad and smooth. 
But within the gates we walk, for the streets are nar- 
row, steep and slippery, and to attempt them on 
horseback is to travel with an anxious mind. 

Through the Jaffa Gate, indeed, you may easily 
ride, or even drive in your carriage : not through the 
gateway itself, which is a close and crooked alley, 
but through the great gap in the wall beside it, made 
for the German Emperor to pass through at the time 
of his famous imperial scouting-expedition in Syria 
in 1898. Thus following the track of the great Wil- 

59 



THE GATES OF ZION 

liam you come to the entrance of the Grand New 
Hotel, among curiosity-shops and tourist-agencies, 
where a multitude of bootblacks assure you that you 
need **a shine," and valets de place press their ser- 
vices upon you, and ingratiating young merchants 
try to allure you into their establishments to pur- 
chase photographs or embroidered scarves or olive- 
wood souvenirs of the Holy Land. 

Come over to Cook's oflfice, where we get our let- 
ters, and stand for a while on the little terrace with 
the iron railing, looking at the motley crowd which 
fills the place in front of the citadel. Groups of blue- 
robed peasant women sit on the curbstone, selling 
fii'ewood and grass and vegetables. Their faces are 
bare and brown, wTinkled with the sun and the wdnd. 
Turkish soldiers in dark-green uniform, Greek priests 
in black robes and stove-pipe hats. Bedouins in flow- 
ing cloaks of brown and white, pale-faced Jews with 
velvet gabardines and curly ear-locks, Moslem 
women in many-coloured silken garments and half- 
transparent veils, British tourists with cork helmets 
and white umbrellas, camels, donkeys, goats, and 
sheep, jostle together in picturesque confusion. 

60 



A Street in Jerusalem. 



THE GATES OF ZION 

There is a water-carrier with his shiny, dripping, 
bulbous goat-skin on his shoulders. There is an 
Arab of the wilderness with a young gazelle in his 
arms. 

Now let us go down the greasy, gliddery steps of 
David Street, between the diminutive dusky shops 
with open fronts where all kinds of queer things to 
eat and to wear are sold, and all sorts of craftsmen 
are at work making shoes, and tin pans, and copper 
pots, and wooden seats, and little tables, and clothes 
of strange pattern. A turn to the left brings us into 
Christian Street and the New Bazaar of the Greeks, 
with its modem stores. 

A turn to the right and a long descent under dark 
archways and through dirty, shadowy alleys brings 
us to the Place of Lamentations, beside the ancient 
foundation wall of the Temple, where the Jews come 
in the afternoon of Fridays and festival-days to lean 
their heads against the huge stones and murmur forth 
their wailings over the downfall of Jerusalem. " For 
the majesty that is departed," cries the leader, and 
the others answer: "We sit in solitude and mourn." 
** We pray Thee have mercy on Z ion, "cries the leader, 

61 



THE GATES OF ZION 

and the others answer: "Gather the children of Je- 
rusalem." With most of them it seems a perfunc- 
tory mourning; but there are two or three old men 
with the tears running down their faces as they kiss 
the smooth- worn stones. 

We enter convents and churches, mosques and 
tombs. We trace the course of the traditional Via 
Dolorosa, and try to reconstruct in our imagination 
the probable path of that grievous journey from the 
judgment-hall of injustice to the Calvary of cruelty — 
a path w^hich now lies buried far below the present 
level of the city. 

One impression deepens in my mind with every 
hour: this was never Christ's city. The confusion, 
the shallow curiosity, the self-interest, the clashing 
prejudices, the inaccessibility of the idle and busy 
multitudes were the same in His day that they are 
now. It was not here that Jesus found the men and 
women who believed in Him and loved Him, but in 
the quiet villages, among the green fields, by the 
peaceful lake-shores. And it is not here that we 
shall find the clearest traces, the most intimate vi- 
sions of Him, but away in the big out-of-doors, where 

62 



THE GATES OF ZION 

the sky opens free above us, and the landscapes roll 
away to far horizons. 

As we loiter about the city, now alone, now under 
the discreet and unhampering escort of the Bethle- 
hemite; watching the Mussulmans at their dinner 
in some dingy little restaurant, where kitchen, store- 
room and banquet-hall are all in the same apart- 
ment, level and open to the street; pausing to bar- 
gain with an impassive Arab for a leather belt or 
with an ingratiating Greek for a string of amber 
beads; looking in through the unshuttered windows 
of the Jewish houses where the families are gathered 
in festal array for the household rites of Passover 
week; turning over the chaplets, and rosaries, and 
anklets, and bracelets of coloured glass and mother- 
of-pearl, and variegated stones, and curious beans 
and seed-pods in the baskets of the street-vendors 
around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; step- 
ping back into an archway to avoid a bag-footed 
camel, or a gaily caparisoned horse, or a heavy- 
laden donkey passing through a narrow street; ex- 
changing a smile and an unintelligible friendly jest 
with a sweet-faced, careless child; listening to long 

63 



THE GATES OF ZION 

disputes between buyers and sellers in that resound- 
ing Arab tongue which seems full of tragic indigna- 
tion and wrath, while the eyes of the handsome 
brown Bedouins who use it remain unsearchable 
in their Oriental languor and pride; Jerusalem be- 
comes to us more and more a symbol and epitome 
of that which is changeless and transient, capricious 
and incAdtable, necessary and insignificant, interest- 
ing and unsatisfying, in the unfinished tragi-comedy 
of human life. There are times when it fascinates us 
with its whirling charm. There are other times when 
we are glad to ride away from it, to seek communion 
with the great spirit of some antique prophet, or to 
find the consoling presence of Him who spake the 
words of the eternal life. 



64 



A PSALM OF GREAT CITIES 



How wonderful are the cities that man haih huilded: 
Their walls are compared of heavy stones. 
And their lofty towers rise above the tree-tops. 

Rome, Jerusalem, Cairo, Damascus, — 
Venice, Constantinople, Moscow, Pelcin, — 
London, New York, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, — 

These are the names of mighty enchantments: 

They have called to the ends of the earth. 

They have secretly summoned an host of servants. 

They shine from far sitting beside great waters: 
They are proudly enthroned upon high hills. 
They spread out their splendour along the rivers. 

Yet are they all the work of small patient fingers: 

Their strength is in the hand of man. 

He hath woven his flesh and blood into their glory. 

The cities are scattered over the world like ant-hills: 
Every one of them is full of trouble and toil. 
And their m<ikers run to and fro within them. 

65 



Abundance of riches is laid up in their store-houses: 

Yet they are tormented with the fear of want. 

The cry of the poor in their streets is exceeding bitter. 

Their inhabitants are driven by blind perturbations: 

They whirl sadly in the fever of haste. 

Seeking they know not what, they pursue it fiercely. 

The air is heavy-laden with their breathing: 
The sound of their coming and going is never still. 
Even in the night I hear them whispering and 
crying. 

Beside every ant-hill I behold a monster crouching: 
This is the ant-lion Death, 

He thrusteth forth his tongue and the people perish. 

O God of wisdom thou hast made the country: 
Why hast thou suffered man to make the town ? 

Then God answered, Surely I am the maker of man: 
And in the heart of man I have set the city. 



66 



IV 



MIZPAH AND THE MOUNT OF 
OLIVES 



I 



THE JUDGMENT-SEAT OF SAMUEL 

MiZPAH of Benjamin stands to the northwest: the 
sharpest peak in the Judean range, crowned with 
a ragged, dusty village and a small mosque. We 
rode to it one morning over the steepest, stoniest 
bridle-paths that we had ever seen. The country 
was bleak and rocky, a skeleton of landscape; but 
between the stones and down the precipitous hill- 
sides and along the hot gorges, the incredible mul- 
titude of spring flowers were abloom. 

It was a stiff scramble up the conical hill to the 
little hamlet at the top, built out of and among ruins: 
The mosque, evidently an old Christian church 
remodelled, was bare, but fairly clean, cool, and 
tranquil. We peered through a grated window, 
tied with many-coloured scraps of rags by the Mo- 
hammedan pilgrims, into a whitewashed room con- 
taining a huge sarcophagus said to be the tomb 
of Samuel. Then we climbed the minaret and 

69 



MIZPAH 

lingered on the tiny railed balcony, feeding on the 
view. 

The peak on which we stood was isolated by deep 
ravines from the other hills of desolate gray and 
scanty green. Beyond the western range lay the 
Valley of Aijalon, and beyond that the rich Plain of 
Sharon with iridescent hues of green and blue and 
silver, and beyond that the yellow line of the sand- 
dunes broken by the white spot of Jaffa, and beyond 
that the azure breadth of the Mediterranean. North- 
ward, at our feet, on the summit of a lower conical 
hill, ringed with gray rock, lay the village of El-Jib, 
the ancient Geba of Benjamin, one of the cities 
which Joshua gave to the Levites. 

This was the place from which Jonathan and his 
armour-bearer set out, without Saul's knowledge, 
on their daring, perilous scouting expedition against 
the Philistines . What fighting there was in olden days 
over that tumbled country of hills and gorges, 
stretching away north to the blue mountains of Sa- 
maria and the summits of Ebal and Gerizim on the 
horizon ! 

There on the rocky backbone of Benjamin and 
70 



MIZPAH 

Ephraim, was Ramallah (where we had spent Sun- 
day in the sweet orderhness of the Friends' Mission 
School), and Beeroth, and Bethel, and Gilgal, and 
Shiloh. Eastward, behind the hills, we could trace 
the long, vast trench of the Jordan valley running 
due north and south, filled with thin violet haze and 
terminating in a glint of the Dead Sea. Beyond that 
deep line of division rose the mountains of Gilead 
and Moab, a lofty, unbroken barrier. To the 
south-east we could see the red roofs of the new 
Jerusalem, and a few domes and minarets of the 
ancient city. Beyond them, in the south, was the 
truncated cone of the Frank Mountain, where the 
crusaders made their last stand against the Saracens ; 
and the hills around Bethlehem; and a glimpse, 
nearer at hand, of the tall cypresses and peaceful 
gardens of *Ain Karim. 

This terrestrial paradise of vision encircled us 
with jewel-hues and clear, exquisite outlines. Below 
us were the flat roofs of Nebi Samwil, with a dog 
barking on every roof; the filthy courtyards and 
dark doorways, with a woman in one of them mak- 
ing bread; the ruined archways and broken cisterns 

71 



MIZPAH 

with a pool of green water stagnating in one corner; 
peasants ploughing their stony little fields, and a string 
of donkeys winding up the steep path to the hill. 

Here, centuries ago, Samuel called all Israel to 
Mizpah, and offered sacrifice before Jehovah, and 
judged the people. Here he inspired them with new 
courage and sent them doT\Ti to discomfit the Philis- 
tines. Hither he came as judge and ruler of Israel, 
making his annual circuit between Gilgal and Bethel 
and Mizpah. Here he assembled the tribes again, 
when they were tired of his rule, and gave them a 
King according to their desire, even the tall warrior 
Saul, the son of Kish. 

Do the bones of the prophet rest here or at Ra- 
mah ? I do not know. But here, on this command- 
ing peak, he began and ended his judgeship; from 
this aerie he looked forth upon the inheritance of the 
turbulent sons of Jacob; and here, if you like, to- 
day, a pale, clever young Mohammedan will show 
you what he calls the coffin of Samuel. 



n 



THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 



II 

THE HILL THAT JESUS LOVED 

We had seen from Mizpah the sharp ridge of the. 
Mount of Ohves, rising beyond Jerusalem. Our 
road thither from the camp led us around the city, 
past the Damascus Gate, and the royal grottoes, 
and Herod's Gate, and the Tower of the Storks, and 
St. Stephen's Gate, down into the Valley of the 
Brook Eddron. Here, on the west, rises the precipi- 
tous Temple Hill crowned with the wall of the city, 
and on the east the long ridge of Olivet. 

There are several buildings on the side of the 
steep hill, marking supposed holy places or sacred 
events — the Church of the Tomb of the Virgin, the 
Latin Chapel of the Agony, the Greek Church of 
St. Mary Magdalen. On top of the ridge are the 
Russian Buildings, with the Chapel of the Ascen- 
sion, and the Latin Buildings, with the Church of 
the Creed, the Church of the Paternoster, and a 
Carmelite Nunnery. Among the walls of these in- 
closures we wound our way, and at last tied our 

73 



THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 

horses outside of the Russian garden. We climbed 
the two hundred and fourteen steps of the lofty Bel- 
videre Tower, and found ourselves in possession of 
one of the great views of the world. There is Jeru- 
salem, across the Kidron, spread out like a raised 
map below us. The mountains of Judah roll away 
north and south and east and west — the clean-cut 
pinnacle of Mizpah, the lofty plain of Rephaim, the 
dark hills toward Hebron, the rounded top of Scopus 
where Titus camped with his Roman legions, the 
flattened peak of Frank Mountain. Bethlehem is 
not visible; but there is the tiny village of Bethphage, 
and the first roof of Bethany peeping over the ridge, 
and the Inn of the Good Samaritan in a red cut of 
the long serpentine road to Jericho. The dark range 
of Gilead and Moab seems like a huge wall of lapis- 
lazuli beyond the furrowed, wrinkled, yellowish 
clay-hills and the wide gray trench of the Jordan 
Valley, wherein the river marks its crooked path 
with a line of deep green. The hundreds of ridges 
that slope steeply down to that immense depression 
are touched with a thousand hues of amethystine 
light, and the ravines between them filled with a 

74 



THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 

thousand tones of azure shadow. At the end of the 
valley glitter the blue waters of the Dead Sea, fifteen 
miles away, four thousand feet below us, yet seeming 
so near that we almost expect to hear the sound 
of its waves on the rocky shores of the Wilderness of 
Tekoa. 

On this mount Jesus of Nazareth often walked 
with His disciples. On this widespread landscape 
His eyes rested as He spoke divinely of the invisible 
kingdom of peace and love and joy that shall never 
pass away. Over this walled city, sleeping in the 
sunshine, full of earthly dreams and disappoint- 
ments, battlemented hearts and whited sepulchres 
of the spirit. He wept, and cried: "O Jerusalem, 
how often would I have gathered thy children to- 
gether even as a hen gathereth her own brood under 
her wings, and ye would not!" 



75 



THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 



III 

THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE 

Come down, now, from the mount of vision to 
the grove of olive-trees, the Garden of Gethsemane, 
where Jesus used to take refuge with His friends. 
It lies on the eastern slope of Olivet, not far above 
the Valley of Kidron, over against that city-gate 
which was called the Beautiful, or the Golden, but 
which is now walled up. 

The grove probably belonged to some friend of 
Jesus or of one of His disciples, who permitted them 
to make use of it for their quiet meetings. At that 
time, no doubt, the whole hillside was covered with 
olive-trees, but most of these have now disappeared. 
The eight aged trees that still cling to life in Geth- 
semane have been inclosed with a low wall and an 
iron railing, and the little garden that blooms around 
them is cared for by Franciscan monks from Italy. 

The gentle, friendly Fra Giovanni, in bare san- 
daled feet, coarse brown robe, and broad-brimmed 
straw hat, is walking among the flowers. He opens 
76 



THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 

the gate for us and courteously invites us in, telling 
us in broken French that we may pick what flowers 
we like. Presently I fall into discourse with him in 
broken Italian, telling him of my visit years ago to 
the cradle of his Order at Assisi, and to its most 
beautiful shrine at La Verna, high above the Val 
d'Arno. His old eyes soften into youthful brightness 
as he speaks of Italy. It was most beautiful, he said, 
hellisima! But he is happier here, caring for this 
garden, it is most holy, sardissima! 

The bronzed Mohammedan gardener, silent, pa- 
tient, absorbed in his task, moves with his watering- 
pot among the beds, quietly refreshing the thirsty 
blossoms. There are wall-flowers, stocks, pansies, 
baby's breath, pinks, anemones of all colours, rose- 
mary, rue, poppies — all sorts of sweet old-fashioned 
flowers. Among them stand the scattered venerable 
trees, with enormous trunks, wrinkled and contorted, 
eaten away by age, patched and built up with stones, 
protected and tended with pious care, as if they were 
very old people whose life must be tenderly nursed 
and sheltered. Their boles hardly seem to be of 
wood; so dark, so twisted, so furrowed are they, of 

77 



THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 

an aspect so enduring that they appear to be cast in 
bronze or carved out of black granite. Above each 
of them spreads a crown of fresh foliage, delicate, 
abundant, shimmering softly in the sunlight and the 
breeze, with silken turnings of the under side of the 
innumerable leaves. In the centre of the garden is 
a kind of open flower house with a fountain of flow- 
ing water, erected in memory of a young American 
girl. At each corner a pair of slender cypresses lift 
their black-green spires against the blanched azure 
of the sky. 

It is a place of refuge, of ineffable tranquillity, of 
unforgetful tenderness. The inclosure does not 
offend. How else could this sacred shrine of the 
out-of-doors be preserved ? And what more fitting 
guardian for it than the Order of that loving Saint 
Francis, who called the sun and the moon his brother 
and his sister and preached to a joyous congregation 
of birds as his " little brothers of the air " ? The flow- 
ers do not offend. Their antique fragrance, gracious 
order, familiar looks, are a symbol of what faithful 
memory does with the sorrows and sufferings of 
those who have loved us best — she treasures and 

78 



THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 

transmutes them into something beautiful, she 
grows her sweetest flowers in the ground that tears 
have made holy. 

It is here, in this quaint and carefully tended gar- 
den, this precious place which has been saved alike 
from the oblivious trampling of the crowd and from 
the needless imprisonment of four walls and a roof, 
it is here in the open air, in the calm glow of the 
afternoon, under the shadow of Mount Zion, that 
we find for the first time that which we have come 
so far to seek, — the soul of the Holy Land, the in- 
ward sense of the real presence of Jesus. 

It is as clear, and vivid as any outward experience. 
Why should I not speak of it as simply and can- 
didly ? Nothing that we have yet seen in Palestine, 
no vision of wide-spread landscape, no sight of an- 
cient ruin or famous building or treasured relic, 
comes as close to our hearts as this little garden 
sleeping in the sun. Nothing that we have read from 
our Bibles in the new light of this journey has been 
for us so suddenly illumined, so deeply and tenderly 
brought home to us, as the story of Gethsemane. 

Here, indeed, in the moonlit shadow of these 
79 



THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 

olives — if not of these very branches, yet of others 
sprung from the same immemorial stems — was en- 
dured the deepest suffering ever borne for man, the 
most profound sorrow of the greatest Soul that 
loved all human souls. It was not in the temptation 
in the wilderness, as Milton imagined, that the crisis 
of the Divine life was enacted and Paradise was re- 
gained. It was in the agony in the garden. 

Here the love of life wrestled in the heart of Jesus 
with the purpose of sacrifice, and the anguish of that 
wrestling wrung the drops of blood from Him like 
sweat. Here, for the only time. He found the cup of 
sorrow and shame too bitter, and prayed the Father 
to take it from His lips if it were possible — ^possible 
without breaking faith, without surrendering love. 
For that He would not do, though His soul was ex- 
ceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Here He 
learned the frailty of human friendship, the narrow- 
ness and dulness and coldness of the very hearts for 
whom He had done and suffered most, who could 
not even watch with Him one hour. 

What infinite sense of the poverty and feebleness 
of mankind, the inveteracy of selfishness, the uncer- 

80 



THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 

tainty of human impulses and aspirations and prom- 
ises; what poignant questioning of the necessity, the 
utiUty of self-immolation must have tortured the soul 
of Jesus in that hour! It was His black hour. None 
can imagine the depth of that darkness but those 
who have themselves passed through some of its 
outer shadows, in the times when love seems vain, 
and sacrifice futile, and friendship meaningless, and 
life a failure, and death intolerable. 

Jesus met the spirit of despair in the Garden of 
Gethsemane; and after that meeting, the cross had 
no terrors for Him, because He had already endured 
them; the grave no fear, because He had already 
conquered it. How calm and gentle was the voice 
with which He wakened His disciples, how firm the 
step with which He went to meet Judas! The bitter- 
ness of death was behind Him in the shadow of the 
olive-trees. The peace of Heaven shone above Him 
in the silent stars. 



81 



A PSALM OF SURRENDER 

Mine enemies have prevailed against me, O God: 
Thou hast led me deep into their ambush. 

They surround me with a hedge of spears: 
And the sword in my hand is broken. 

My friends also have forsaken my side: 

From a safe place they look upon me with pity. 

My heart is like water poured upon the ground: 
I have come alone to the place of surrender. 

To thee, to thee only will I give up my sword: 
The sword which was broken in thy service. 

Thou hast required me to suffer for thy cause: 
By my defeat thy will is victorious. 

O my King show me thy face shining in the dark: 
While I drink the loving-cup of death to thy glory. 



82 



V 



AN EXCURSION TO BETHLE- 
HEM AND HEBRON 



I 



BETHLEHEM 

A SPARKLING morning followed a showery 
night, and all the little red and white and yellow 
jflowers were lifting glad faces to the sun as we took 
the highroad to Bethlehem. Leaving the Jaffa Gate 
on the left, we crossed the head of the deep Valley 
of Hinnom, below the dirty Pool of the Sultan, 
and rode up the hill on the opposite side of the 
vale. 

There was much rubbish and filth around us, and 
the sight of the Ophthalmic Hospital of the English 
Knights of Saint John, standing in the beauty of 
cleanness and order beside the road, did our eyes 
good. Blindness is one of the common afflictions 
of the people of Palestine. Neglect and ignorance 
and dirt and the plague of crawhng flies spread the 
germs of disease from eye to eye, and the people sub- 
mit to it with pathetic and irritating fatalism. It is 
hard to persuade these poor souls that the will of 

85 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

Allah or Jehovah in this matter ought not to be ac- 
cepted until after it has been questioned. But the 
light of true and humane religion is spreading a little. 
We rejoiced to see the reception-room of the hospital 
filled with all sorts and conditions of men, women 
and children waiting for the good physicians who 
save and restore sight in the name of Jesus. 

To the right, a little below us, lay the ugly railway 
station ; before us, rising gently southward, extended 
the elevated Plain of Rephaim where David smote 
the host of the Philistines after he had heard "the 
sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees." 
The red soil was cultivated in little farms and 
gardens. The almond-trees were in leaf; the haw- 
thorn in blossom; the fig-trees were putting forth 
their tender green. 

A slowly ascending road brought us to the hill of 
Mar Elyas, and the so-called Well of the Magi. 
Here the legend says the Wise Men halted after they 
had left Jerusalem, and the star reappeared to guide 
them on to Bethlehem. Certain it is that they must 
have taken this road; and certain it is that both 
Bethlehem and Jerusalem, hidden from each other 

86 



A Street in Bethlehem. 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

by the rising ground, are clearly visible to one who 
stands in the saddle of this hill. 
^ There were fine views down the valleys to the east, 
with blue glimpses of the Dead Sea at the end of 
them. The supposed tomb of Rachel, a dingy little 
building with a white dome, interested us less than the 
broad lake of olive-orchards around the distant vil- 
lage of Beit Jala, and the green fields, pastures and gar- 
dens encircling the double hill of Bethlehem, the an- 
cient "House of Bread." There was an aspect of 
fertility and friendliness about the place that seemed 
in harmony with its name and its poetic memories. 

In a walled kitchen-garden at the entrance of the 
town was David's Well. We felt no assurance, of 
course, as we looked down into it, that this was the 
veritable place. But at all events it served to 
bring back to us one of the prettiest bits of romance 
in the Old Testament. When the bold son of Jesse 
had become a chieftain of outlaws and was besieged 
by the Philistines in the stronghold of AduUam, his 
heart grew thirsty for a draught from his father's 
well, whose sweetness he had known as a boy. And 
when his three mighty men went up secretly at the 

87 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

risk of their lives, and broke tlirough the host of their 
enemies, and brought their captain a vessel of this 
water, "'he would not drink thereof, but poured it 
out unto Jehovah." 

There was a division of opinion in our party in 
regard to this act. ''It was sheer foohshness," 
said the Patriarch, '*'to waste anything that had 
cost so much to get. Wkat must the three mighty 
men have thought when they saw that for which 
they had risked their lives poured out upon the 
ground?" "Ah, no." said the Lady. "It wa.s 
the highest gratitude, because it was touched with 
poetry. It was the best comphment that David 
could have given to his friends. Some gifts are too 
precious to be received in any other way than this.''* 
And in my heart I knew that she was right. 

Riding through the narrow streets of the to-wn, 
which is inhabited almost entirely by Christians, we 
noted the tranquil good looks of the women, a dis- 
tinct t^'pe, rather short of stature, round-faced, placid 
and kind of aspect. Not a few of them had blue eyes. 
They wore dark-blue skirts, dark-red jackets, and a 
white veil over their heads, but not over their faces. 

88 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

Under the veil the married women wore a peculiar 
cap of stiff, embroidered black cloth, about six 
inches high, and across the front of this cap was 
strung their dowry of gold or silver coins. Such a 
dress, no doubt, was worn by the Virgin Mary,"and 
such tranquil, friendly looks, I think, were hers, but 
touched with a rarer light of beauty shining from 
a secret source within. 

A crowd of Httle boys and girls just released from 
school for their recess shouted and laughed and 
chased one another, pausing for a moment in round- 
eyed wonder when I pointed my camera at them. 
Donkeys and camels and sheep made our passage 
through the town slow, and gave us occasion to look 
to our horses' footing. At one corner a great white 
sow ran out of an alley- way, followed by a twinkling 
litter of pink pigs. In the market-place we left our 
horses in the shadow of the monastery wall and 
entered, by a low door, the lofty, bare Church of 
the Nativity. 

The long rows of immense marble pillars had some 
faded remains of painting on them. There were a 
few battered fragments of mosaic in the clerestory, 

89 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

dimly glittering. But the general ejffect of the 
whitewashed walls, the ancient brown beams and 
rafters of the roof, the large, empty space, was one of 
extreme simplicity. 

When we came into the choir and apse we found 
ourselves in the midst of complexity. The owner- 
ship of the different altars with their gilt ornaments, 
of the swinging lamps, of the separate doorways of 
the Greeks and the Armenians and the Latins, was 
bewildering. Dark, winding steps, slippery with the 
drippings from many candles, led us down into the 
Grotto of the Nativity. It was a cavern perhaps 
forty feet long and ten feet wide, lit by thirty pen- 
dent lamps (Greek, Armenian and Latin): marble 
floor and walls hung with draperies; a silver star in 
the pavement before the altar to mark the spot where 
Christ was born ; a marble manger in the corner to 
mark the cradle in which Christ was laid ; a never- 
ceasing stream of poor pilgrims, who come kneeling, 
and kissing the star and the stones and the altar for 
Christ's sake. 

'We paused for a while, after we had come up, to 
ask ourselves whether what we had seen was in any 

90 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

way credible. Yes, credible, but not convincing. 
No doubt the ancient Khan of Bethlehem must have 
been somewhere near this spot, in the vicinity of the 
market-place of the town. No doubt it was the cus- 
tom, when there were natural hollows or artificial 
grottos in the rock near such an inn, to use them as 
shelters and stalls for the cattle. It is quite possible, 
it is even probable, that this may have been one of 
the shallow caverns used for such a purpose. If so, 
there is no reason to deny that this may be the place 
of the wondrous birth, where, as the old French Noel 
has it: 

^*Dieu parmy les pastoreauXy 
Sous la creche des toreaux, 
Dans les champs a voulu naistre; 
Et non paiimy les arrays 
Des grands princes et des roys, — 
Lui des plus grands roys le maistre.^' 

But to the eye, at least, there is no reminder of the 
scene of the Nativity in this close and stifling chapel, 
hung with costly silks and embroideries, glittering 
with rich lamps, filled with the smoke of incense and 
waxen tapers. And to the heart there is little sug- 

91 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

gestion of the lonely night when Joseph found a 
humble refuge here for his young bride to wait in 
darkness, pain and hope for her hour to come. 

In the church above, the Latins and Armenians 
and Greeks guard their privileges and prerogatives 
jealously. There have been fights here about the 
driving of a nail, the hanging of a picture, the sweep- 
ing of a bit of the floor. The Crimean War began in 
a quarrel between the Greeks and the Latins, and a 
mob-struggle in the Church of the Nativity. Under- 
neath the floor, to the north of the Grotto of the 
Nativity, is the cave in which Saint Jerome lived 
peaceably for many years, translating the Bible into 
Latin. That was better than fighting. 

II 

ON THE ROAD TO HEBRON 

We ate our lunch at Bethlehem in a curiosity- 
shop. The table was spread at the back of the room 
by the open window. All around us were hanging 
innumerable chaplets and rosaries of mother-of- 
pearl, of carnelian, of carved olive-stones, of glass 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

beads; trinkets and souvenirs of all imaginable 
kinds, tiny sheep-bells and inlaid boxes and carved 
fans filled the cases and cabinets. Through the 
window came the noise of people busy at Bethle- 
hem's chief industry, the cutting and polishing of 
mother-of-pearl for mementoes. The jinghng bells 
of our pack-train, passing the open door, reminded 
us that our camp was to be pitched miles away on 
the road to Hebron. 

We called for the horses and rode on through the 
town. Very beautiful and peaceful was the view 
from the southern hill, looking down upon the 
pastures of Bethlehem where "shepherds watched 
their flocks by night," and the field of Boaz where 
Ruth followed the reapers among the corn. 

Down dale and up hill we journeyed; bright green 
of almond-trees, dark green of carob-trees, snowy 
blossoms of apricot-trees, rosy blossoms of peach- 
trees, argent verdure of olive-trees, adorning the val- 
leys. Then out over the wilder, rockier heights; 
and past the great empty Pools of Solomon, lying at 
the head of the Wadi Artas, watched by a square 
ruined castle; and up the winding road and along 

93 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

the lofty flower-sprinkled ridges; and at last we 
came to our tents, pitched in the wide, green Wadi 
eI-*Arriib, beside the bridge. 

Springs gushed out of the hillside here and ran 
down in a little laughing brook through lawns full of 
tiny pink and white daisies, and broad fields of tan- 
gled weeds and flowers, red anemones, blue iris, pur- 
ple mallows, scarlet adonis, with here and there 
a strip of cultivated ground shimmering with silky 
leeks or dotted with young cucumbers. There was 
a broken aqueduct cut in the rock at the side of the 
valley, and the brook slipped by a large ruined 
reservoir. 

"George," said I to the Bethlehemite, as he sat 
meditating on the edge of the dry pool, "what do 
you think of this valley?" 

"I think," said George, "that if I had a few thou- 
sand dollars to buy the land, with all this runaway 
water I could make it blossom like a peach-tree." 

The cold, green sunset behind the western hills 
darkened into night. The air grew chilly, dropping 
nearly to the point of frost. We missed the blazing 
camp-fire of the Canadian forests, and went to bed 

94 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

early, tucking in the hot- water bags at our feet and 
piling on the blankets and rugs. All through the 
night we could hear the passers-by shouting and 
singing along the Hebron road. There was one un- 
known traveller whose high-pitched, quavering Arab 
song rose far away, and grew louder as he ap- 
proached, and passed us in a whirlwind of lugubrious 
music, and tapered slowly off into distance and si- 
lence — a chant a mile long. 

The morning broke through flying clouds, with a 
bitter, wet, west wind rasping the bleak highlands. 
There were spiteful showers with intervals of mock- 
ing sunshine; it was a mischievous and prankish bit 
of weather, no day for riding. But the Lady was 
indomitable, so we left the Patriarch in his tent, 
wrapped ourselves in garments of mackintosh and 
took the road again. 

The country, at first, was wild and barren, a wil- 
derness of rocks and thorn bushes and stunted scrub 
oaks. Now and then a Greek partridge, in its beau- 
tiful plumage of fawn-gray, marked with red and 
black about the head, clucked like a hen on the stony 
hillside, or whirred away in low, straight flight over 

95 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

the bushes. Flocks of black and brown goats, with 
pendulous ears, skipped up and down the steep ridges, 
standing up on their hind legs to browse the foliage 
of the little oak shrubs, or showing themselves off in 
a butting-match on top of a big rock. Marching on 
the highroad they seemed sedate, despondent, pat- 
tering along soberly with flapping ears. In the midst 
of one flock I saw a fierce-looking tattered pastor 
tenderly carrying a little black kid in his bosom — as 
tenderly as if it were a lamb. It seemed like an illus- 
tration of a picture that I saw long ago in the Cata- 
combs, in which the infant church of Christ silently 
expressed the richness of her love, the breadth of her 
hope: 

" On those walls subterranean, where she hid 
Her head 'mid ignominy, death and tombs, 
She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew — 
And on His shoulders, not a lamb, a kid." 

As we drew nearer to Hebron the region appeared 
more fertile, and the landscape smiled a little under 
the gleams of wintry sunshine. There were many 
vineyards; in most of them the vines trailed along 
the ground, but in some they were propped up on 

96 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

sticks, like old men leaning on crutches. Almond 
and apricot-trees flourished. The mulberries, the 
olives, the sycamores were abundant. Peasants 
were ploughing the fields with their crooked sticks 
shod with a long iron point. When a man puts his 
hand to such a plough he dares not look back, else it 
will surely go aside. It makes a scratch, not a 
furrow. (I saw a man in the hospital at Nazareth 
who had his thigh pierced clear through by one of 
these dagger-like iron plough points.) 

Children were gathering roots and thorn branches 
for firewood. Women were carrying huge bundles 
on their heads. Donkey-boys were urging their 
heavy-laden animals along the road, and cameleers 
led their deliberate strings of ungainly beasts by a 
rope or a light chain reaching from one nodding 
head to another. 

A camel's load never looks as large as a donkey's, 
but no doubt he often finds it heavy, and he always 
looks displeased with it. There is something about 
the droop of a camel's lower lip which seems to ex- 
press unalterable disgust with the universe. But 
the rest of the world around Hebron appeared to be 

97 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

reasonably happy. In spite of weather and poverty 
and hard work the ploughmen sang in the fields, the 
children skipped and whistled at their tasks, the 
passers-by on the road shouted greetings to the la- 
bourers in the gardens and vineyards. Somewhere 
round about here is supposed to lie the Valley of 
Eshcol from which the Hebrew spies brought back 
the monstrous bunch of grapes, a cluster that reached 
from the height of a man's shoulder to the ground. 



Ill 

THE TENTING-GROUND OF 
ABRAHAM 

Hebron lies three thousand feet above the sea, and 
is one of the ancient market-places and shiines of 
the world. From time immemorial it has been a holy 
town, a busy town, and a turbulent town. The Hit- 
tites and the Amorites dwelt here, and Abraham, 
a nomadic shepherd whose tents followed his flocks 
over the land of Canaan, bought here his only 
piece of real estate, the field and cave of Machpeiah. 
He bought it for a tomb, — even a nomad wishes 

98 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

to rest quietly in death, — and here he and his wife 
Sarah, and his children Isaac and Rebekah, and his 
grandchildren Jacob and Leah were buried. 

The modern town has about twenty thousand in- 
habitants, chiefly Mohammedans of a fanatical tem- 
per, and is incredibly dirty. We passed the muddy 
pool by which King David, when he was reigning 
here, hanged the murderers of Ishbosheth. We 
climbed the crooked streets to the Mosque which 
covers the supposed site of the cave of Machpelah. 
But we did not see the tomb of Abraham, for no 
"infidel" is allowed to pass beyond the seventh step 
in the flight of stairs which leads up to the doorway. 

As we went down through the narrow, dark, 
crowded Bazaar a violent storm of hail broke over 
the city, pelting into the little open shops and cover- 
ing the streets half an inch deep with snowy sand 
and pebbles of ice. The tempest was a rude joke, 
which seemed to surprise the surly crowd into a good 
humour. We laughed with the Moslems as we took 
shelter together from our common misery under a 
stone archway. 

After the storm had passed we ate our midday 
99 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

meal on a housetop, which a friend of the dragoman 
put at our disposal, and rode out in the afternoon to 
the Oak of Abraham on the hill of Mamre. The 
tree is an immense, battered veteran, with a trunk 
ten feet in diameter, and wide-flung, knotted arms 
which still bear a few leaves and acorns. It has been 
inclosed with a railing, patched up with masonry, 
partially protected by a roof. The Russian monks 
who live near by have given it pious care, yet its in- 
evitable end is surely near. 

The death of a great sheltering tree has a kind of 
dumb pathos. It seems like the passing away of 
something beneficent and helpless, something that 
was able to shield others but not itself. 

On this hill, under the oaks of Mamre, Abraham's 
tents were pitched many a year, and here he enter- 
tained the three angels unawares, and Sarah made 
pancakes for them, and listened behind the tent-flap 
while they were talking with her husband, and 
laughed at what they said. This may not be the 
very tree that flung its shadow over the tent, but 
no doubt it is a son or a grandson of that tree, and 
the acorns that still fall from it may be the seeds of 

100 



BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON 

other oaks to shelter future generations of pilgrims; 
and so throughout the world, the ancient covenant of 
friendship is unbroken, and man remains a grateful 
lover of the big, kind trees. 

We got home to our camp in the green meadow of 
the springs late in the afternoon, and on the third 
day we rode back to Jerusalem, and pitched the 
tents in a new place, on a hill opposite the Jaffa 
Gate, with a splendid view of the Valley of Hinnom, 
the Tower of David, and the western wall of the city. 



101 



A PSALM OF FRIENDLY TREES 



I will sing of tJie bounty of the big trees. 

They are the green tents of tJie Almighty, 

He hath set them up for comfoii and for sJuUer. 

Their cords hath he knotted in tJie eaHh, 
He hath driven their stakes securely. 
Their roots take hold of the rocks like iron. 

He sendeth into their bodies tJie sap of life. 
They lift themselves lightly towards the heavens. 
They rejoice in the broadening of tJieir branches. 

Their leaves drink in the sunlight and tiie air. 
They talk softly together when tJie breeze bloweth. 
Their shadow in the noonday is full of coolness. 

The taU palm-trees of the plain are rich in fruit, 

While the fruit ripeneth the floiver unfoldeth. 

The beauty of their croivn is renewed on high forever. 

The cedars of Lebanon are fed by the snow. 
Afar on the mountain they grow like giants. 
In tJieir layers of sJmde a tJwusand years are sighing. 

102 



How fair are the trees that befriend tJie home of man, 
The oak, and the terebinth, and the sycamore. 
The fruitful fig-tree and the silvery olive. 

In them the Lord is loving to his little birds, — 
The linnets and the finches and the nightingales, — 
They people his pavilions with nests and with music. 

The cattle are very glad of a great tree. 
They chew the cud beneath it while the sun is 
burning. 

There also the panting sheep lie down around their 
shepherd. 

He that planteth a tree is a servant of God, 
He provideth a kindness for many generations. 
And faces that he hath not seen shall bless him. 

Lord, when my spirit shall return to thee. 
At the foot of a friendly tree let my body be buried. 
That this dust may rise and rejoice among the 
% branches. 



103 



VI 

THE TEMPLE AND THE 
SEPULCHRE 



I 



THE DOME OF THE ROCK 

There is an upward impulse in man that draws 
him to a hilltop for his place of devotion and sanct- 
uary of ascending thoughts. The purer air, the 
wider outlook, the sense of freedom and elevation, 
help to release his spirit from the weight that bends 
his forehead to the dust. A traveller in Palestine, if 
he had wings, could easily pass through the whole 
land by short flights from the summit of one holy 
hill to another, and look down from a series of 
mountain-altars upon the wrinkled map of sacred 
history without once descending into the valley or 
toiling over the plain. But since there are no wings 
provided in the human outfit, our journey from 
shrine to shrine must follow the common way of 
men, — which is also a symbol, — ^the path of up-and- 
down, and many windings, and weary steps. 

The oldest of the shrines of Jerusalem is the 
threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, which David 

107 



THE TEMPLE 

bought from him in order that it might be made the 
site of the Temple of Jehovah. No doubt the King 
knew of the traditions which connected the place 
with ancient and famous rites of worship. But I 
think he was moved also by the commanding beauty 
of the situation, on the very summit of Mount Moriah, 
looking down into the deep Valley of the Kidron. 

Our way to this venerable and sacred hill 
leads through the crooked duskiness of David 
Street, and across the half-filled depression of the 
Tyropoeon Valley which divides the city, and up 
through the dim, deserted Bazaar of the Cotton 
Merchants, and so through the central western gate 
of the Ha^am-esh-Sherif, "the Noble Sanctuary." 

This is a great inclosure, clean, spacious, airy, 
a place of refuge from the foul confusion of the city 
streets. The wall that shuts us in is almost a mile 
long, and within this open space, which makes an 
immediate effect of breadth and tranquil order, are 
some of the most sacred buildings of Islam and some 
of the most significant landmarks of Christianity. 

Slender and graceful arcades are outlined against 
the clear, blue sky: little domes are poised over 

108 



THE TEMPLE 

praying-places and fountains of ablution: wide and 
easy flights of steps lead from one level to another, 
in this park of prayer. 

At the southern end, beyond the tall cypresses 
and the plashing fountain fed from Solomon's 
Pools, stands the long Mosque el-Aksa: to Moham- 
medans, the place to which Allah brought their 
prophet from Mecca in one night; to Christians, the 
Basilica which the Emperor Justinian erected in 
honor of the Virgin Mary. At the northern end rises 
the ancient wall of the Castle of Antonia, from 
whose steps Saint Paul, protected by the Roman 
captain, spoke his defence to the Jerusalem mob. 
The steps, hewn partly in the solid rock, are still 
visible; but the site of the castle is occupied by the 
Turkish barracks, beside which the tallest minaret 
of the Haram lifts its covered gallery high above the 
corner of the great wall. 

Yonder to the east is the Golden Gate, above the 
steep Valley of Jehoshaphat. It is closed with great 
stones ; because the Moslem tradition says that some 
Friday a Christian conqueror will enter Jerusalem 
by that gate. Not far away we see the column in the 
109 



THE TEMPLE 

wall from which the Mohammedans believe a slender 
rope, or perhaps a naked sword, will be stretched, 
in the judgment day, to the Mount of Ohves oppo- 
site. This, according to them, will be the bridge 
over which all human souls must walk, while Christ 
sits at one end, Mohammed at the other, watching 
and judging. The righteous, upheld by angels, will 
pass safely; the wicked, heavy with unbalanced 
sins, will fall. 

Dominating all these wide-spread relics and 
shrines, in the centre of the inclosure, on a raised 
platform approached through delicate arcades, stands 
the great Dome of the Rock, built by Abd-el-Melik 
in 688 A.D., on the site of the Jewish Temple. The 
exterior of the vast octagon, with its lower half cased 
in marble and its upper half incrusted with Persian 
tiles of blue and green, its broad, round lantern and 
swelling black dome surmounted by a glittering 
crescent, is bathed in full sunlight; serene, proud, 
eloquent of a certain splendid simplicity. Within, the 
light filters dimly through windows of stained glass 
and falls on marble columns, bronzed beams, mosaic 
walls, screens of wrought iron and carved wood. 

110 



THE TEMPLE 

We walk as if through an interlaced forest and under- 
growth of rich entangled colours. It all seems vi- 
sionary, unreal, fantastic, until we climb the bench 
by the end of the inner screen and look upon the 
Rock oVer which the Dome is built. 

This is the real thing, — a plain gray Kmestone rock, 
level and fairly smooth, the unchanged summit of 
Mount Moriah. Here the priest-king Melchizedek 
offered sacrifice. Here Abraham, in the cruel fervour 
of his faith, was about to slay his only son Isaac be- 
cause he thought it would please Jehovah. Here 
Araunah the Jebusite threshed his corn on the 
smooth rock and winnowed it in the winds of the 
hilltop, until King David stepped over from Mount 
Zion, and bought the threshing-floor and the oxen of 
him for fifty shekels of silver, and built in this place 
an altar to the Lord. Here Solomon erected his splen- 
did Temple and the Chaldeans burned it. Here 
Zerubbabel built the second Temple after the return 
of the Jews from exile, and Antiochus Epiphanes des- 
ecrated it, and Herod burned part of it and pulled 
down the rest. Here Herod built the third Temple, 
larger and more magnificent than the first, and the 
111 



THE TEMPLE 

soldiers of the Emperor Titus burned it. Here the 
Emperor Hadrian built a temple to Jupiter and 
himself, and some one, perhaps the Christians, 
burned it. Here Mohammed came to pray, declar- 
ing that one prayer here was worth a thousand else- 
where. Here the Caliph Omar built a little wooden 
mosque, and the Caliph Abd-el-Melik replaced it 
with this great one of marble, and the Crusaders 
changed it into a Christian temple, and Saladin 
changed it back again into a mosque. 

This Haram-esh-Sherif is the second holiest place 
in the Moslem world. Hither come the Mohamme- 
dan pilgrims by thousands, for the sake of Moham- 
med. Hither come the Christian pilgrims by thou- 
sands, for the sake of Him who said: "Neither in 
this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the 
Father.'* Hither the Jewish pilgrims never come, 
for fear their feet may unwittingly tread upon "the 
Holy of Holies," and defile it; but they creep outside 
of the great inclosure, in the gloomy trench beside 
the foundation stones of the wall, mourning and la- 
menting for the majesty that is departed and the 
Temple that is ground to powder. 

112 



THE TEMPLE 

But amid all these changes and perturbations, 
here stands the good old limestone rock, the thresh- 
ing-floor of Araunah, the capstone of the hill, wait- 
ing for the sun to shine and the dews to fall on it 
once more, as they did when the foundations of the 
earth were laid. 

The legend says that you can hear the waters of the 
flood roaring in an abyss underneath the rock. I 
laid my ear against the rugged stone and listened. 
What sound ? Was it the voice of turbulent cen- 
turies and the lapsing tides of men ? 

II 

GOLGOTHA 

" We ought to go again to the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre," said the Lady in a voice of dutiful re- 
minder, "we have not half seen it." So we went 
down to the heart of Jerusalem and entered the 
labyrinthine shrine. 

The motley crowd in the paved quadrangle in 
front of the double-arched doorway were buying and 
selling, bickering and chaffering and chattering as 
113 



THE SEPULCHRE 

usual. Within the portal, on a slightly raised plat- 
form to the left, the Turkish guardians of the holy 
]:)laces and keepers of the peace between Christians 
were seated among their rugs and cushions, impas- 
sive, indolent, dignified, drinking their coffee or 
smoking their tobacco, conversing gravely or count- 
ing the amber beads of their comboloios. The Sultan 
owns the Holy Sepulchre; but he is a liberal host 
and permits all factions of Christendom to visit it 
and celebrate their rites in turn, provided only they 
do not beat or kill one another in their devotions. 
We saw his silent sentinels of tolerance scattered 
in every part of the vast, confused edifice. 

The interior was dim and shadowy. Opposite the 
entrance was the Stone of Unction, a marble slab on 
which it is said the body of Christ was anointed 
when it was taken down from the cross. Pilgrim 
after pilgrim came kneeling to this stone, and bend- 
ing to kiss it, beneath the Latin, Greek, Armenian 
and Coptic lamps which hang above it by silver 
chains. 

The Chapel of the Crucifixion was on our right, 
above us, in the second story of the church. We 

114 



THE SEPULCHRE 

climbed the steep flight of stairs and stood in a little 
room, close, obscure, crowded with lamps and icons 
and candelabra, incrusted with ornaments of gold 
and silver, full of strange odours and glimmerings of 
mystic light. There, they told us, in front of that 
rich altar was the silver star which marked the place 
in the rock where the Holy Cross stood. And on 
either side of it were the sockets which received the 
crosses of the two thieves. And a few feet away, 
covered by a brass slide, was the cleft in the rock 
which was made by the earthquake. It was lined 
with slabs of reddish marble and looked nearly a 
foot deep. 

Priests in black robes and tall, cylindrical hats, and 
others with brown robes, rope girdles and tonsured 
heads, were coming and going around us. Pilgrims 
were climbing and descending the stairs, kneeling 
and murmuring unintelligible devotions, kissing the 
star and the cleft in the rock and the icons. Under- 
neath us, though we were supposed to stand on the 
hill called Golgotha, were the offices of the Greek 
clergy and the Chapel of Adam. 

We went around from chapel to chapel; into the 
115 



THE SEPULCHRE 

opulent Greek cathedral where they show the " Cen- 
tre of the World"; into the bare little Chapel of the 
Syrians where they show the tombs of Nicodemus 
and Joseph of Arimathsea; into the Chapel of the 
Apparition where the Franciscans say that Christ 
appeared to His mother after the resurrection. 
There was sweet singing in this chapel and a fra- 
grant smell of incense. We went into the Chapel of 
Saint Helena, underground, which belongs to the 
Greeks; into the Chapel of the Parting of the Rai- 
ment which belongs to the Armenians. We were 
impartial in our visitation, but we did not have time 
to see the Abyssinian Chapel, the Coptic Chapel of 
Saint Michael, nor the Church of Abraham where 
the Anglicans are allowed to celebrate the eucharist 
twice a month. 

The centre of all this maze of creeds, ceremonies 
and devotions is the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, 
a little edifice of precious marbles, carved and gilded, 
standing beneath the great dome of the church, in 
the middle of a rotunda surrounded by marble pil- 
lars. We bought and lighted our waxen tapers and 
waited for a lull in the stream of pilgrims to enter 

116 



THE SEPULCHRE 

the shrine. First we stood in the vestibule with its 
tall candelabra; then in the Angels' Chapel, with 
its fifteen swinging lamps, making darkness visible; 
then, stooping through a low doorway, we came into 
the tiny chamber, six feet square, which is said to 
contain the rock-hewn tomb in which the Saviour of 
the World was buried. 

Mass is celebrated here daily by different Chris- 
tian sects. Pilgrims, rich and poor, come hither 
from all parts of the habitable globe. They kneel 
beneath the three-and-forty pendent lamps of gold 
and silver. They kiss the worn slab of marble which 
covers the tombstone, some of them smiling with 
joy, some of them weeping bitterly, some of them 
with quiet, business-like devotion as if they were per- 
forming a duty. The priest of their faith blesses 
them, sprinkles the relics which they lay on the 
altar with holy water, and one by one the pilgrims 
retire backward through the low portal. 

I saw a Russian peasant, sad-eyed, wrinkled, bent 
with many sorrows, lay his cheek silently on the 
tombstone with a look on his face as if he were a 
child leaning against his mother's breast. I saw a 
117 



THE SEPULCHRE 

little barefoot boy of Jerusalem, with big, serious 
eyes, come quickly in, and try to kiss the stone; but 
it was too high for him, so he kissed his hand and 
laid it upon the altar. I saw a young nun, hardly 
more than a girl, slender, pale, dark-eyed, with a 
noble Italian face, shaken with sobs, the tears run- 
ning down her cheeks, as she bent to touch her lips 
to the resting-place of the Friend of Sinners. 

This, then, is the way in which the craving for 
penitence, for reverence, for devotion, for some 
utterance of the nameless thirst and passion of the 
soul leads these pilgrims. This is the form in which 
the divine mystery of sacrificial sorrow and death 
appeals to them, speaks to their hearts and comforts 
them. 

Could any Christian of whatever creed, could any 
son of woman with a heart to feel the trouble and 
longing of humanity, turn his back upon that altar ? 
3.1ust I not go away from that mysterious little room 
as the others had gone, with my face toward the 
stone of remembrance, stooping through the lowly 
door ? 

And yet — and yet in my deepest heart I was 
118 



THE SEPULCHRE 

thirsty for the open air, the blue sky, the pure sun- 
light, the tranquillity of large and silent spaces. 

The Lady went with me across the crowded quad- 
rangle into the cool, clean, quiet German Church of 
the Redeemer. We climbed to the top of the lofty 
bell tower. 

Jerusalem lay at our feet, with its network of 
streets and lanes, archways and convent walls, domes 
small and great — the black Dome of the Rock in 
the centre of its wide inclosure, the red dome and 
the green dome of the Jewish synagogues on Mount 
Zion, the seven gilded domes of the Russian Church 
of Saint Mary Magdalen, a hundred tiny domes of 
dwelling-houses, and right in front of us the yellow 
dome of the Greek "Centre of the World" and the 
black dome of the Holy Sepulchre. 

The quadrangle was still full of people buying and 
selling, but the murmur of their voices was faint and 
far away, less loud than the twittering of the thou- 
sands of swallows that soared and circled, with 
glistening of innumerable blue-black wings and soft 
sheen of white breasts, in the tender light of sunset 
above the facade of the gray old church. 

119 



THE SEPULCHRE 

Westward the long ridge of Olivet was bathed in 
the rays of the declining sun. 

Northward, beyond the city-gate, the light fell 
softly on a little rocky hill, shaped like a skull, the 
ancient place of stoning for those whom the cruel 
city had despised and rejected and cast out. At the 
foot of that eminence there is a quiet garden and a 
tomb hewn in the rock. Rosemary and rue grow 
there, roses and lilies; birds sing among the trees. 
Is not that little rounded hill, still touched with 
the free light of heaven, still commanding a clear 
outlook over the city to the Mount of Olives — is 
not that the true Golgotha, where Christ was lifted 
up ? 

As we were thinking of this we saw a man come out 
on the roof of the Greek " Centre of the World," and 
climb by a ladder up the side of the huge dome. He 
went slowly and carefully, yet with confidence, as if 
the task were familiar. He carried a lantern in one 
hand. He was going to the top of the dome to light 
up the great cross for the night. We spoke no word, 
but each knew the thought that was in the other's 
heart. 

120 



THE SEPULCHRE 

Wherever the crucifixion took place, it was surely 
in the open air, beneath the wide sky, and the cross 
that stood on Golgotha has become the light at the 
centre of the world's night. 



121 



A PSALM OF THE UNSEEN ALTAR 



Man the maker of cities is also a builder of altars: 
Among his habitations he setteth tables for his god. 

He bringeth the beauty of the rocks to enrich them: 
Marble and alabaster , porphyry, jasper and jade. 

He Cometh with costly gifts to offer an oblation: 

He would buy favour with the fairest of his flock. 

Around the many altars I hear strange music arising: 
Loud lamentations and shouting and singing and 
sighs, 

I perceive also the pain and terror of their sacrifices: 
I see the white marble wet with tears and with blood. 

TJien I said, These are the altars of ignorance: 
Yet they are built by thy children, O God, who know 
thee not. 

Surely thou wilt have pity upon them and lead them: 
Hast thou not prepared for them a table of peace? 

122 



Then the Lord mercifully sent his angel forth to lead 
me: 

He led me through the temples, the holy place 
that is hidden. 

Lo, there are multitudes kneeling in the silence of 
the spirit: 

They are kneeling at the unseen altar of the lowly 
heart. 

Here is plentiful forgiveness for the souls that are 
forgiving: 

And the joy of life is given unto all who long to 
give. 

Here a Father's hand upholdeth all who hear each 

other s burdens: 
And tJie benediction falleth upon all who pray 

in love. 

Surely this is the altar where the penitent find 
pardon: 

And the priest who hath blessed it forever is the 
Holy One of God. 



123 



VII 

JERICHO AND JORDAN 



I 



"GOING DOWN TO JERICHO" 

In the memory of every ^dsitor to Jerusalem the 
excursion to Jericho is a vivid point. For this is the 
one trip which everybody makes, and it is a conven- 
tion of the route to regard it as a perilous and excit- 
ing adventure. Perhaps it is partly this flavour of 
a not- too-dangerous danger, this shivering charm of 
a hazard to be taken without too much risk, that 
attracts the average tourist, prudently romantic, to 
make the journey to the lowest inhabited town in 
the world. 

Jericho has always had an ill name. Weak walls, 
weak hearts, weak morals were its early marks. 
Sweltering on the rich plain of the lower Jordan, 
eight hundred feet below the sea, at the entrance of 
the two chief passes into the Judean highlands, it 
was too indolent or cowardly to maintain its own 
importance. Stanley called it " the key of Palestine " ; 
but it was only a latch which any bold invader could 
127 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

lift. The people of Jericho were famous for light 
fingers and lively feet, great robbers and runners- 
away. Joshua blotted the city out with a curse; five 
centuries later Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt it with the 
bloody sacrifice of his two sons. Antony gave it to 
Cleopatra, and Herod bought it from her for a wintet 
palace, where he died. Nothing fine or brave, so far as 
I can remember, is ^Titten of any of its inhabitants, 
except the good deed of Rahab, a harlot, and the hon- 
est conduct of Zacchseus, a publican. To this day, 
at the tables d'hote of Jerusalem the name of Jericho 
stirs up a little whirlwind of bad stories and warn- 
ings. 

Last night we were dining with friends at one of 
the hotels, and the usual topic came up for discus- 
sion. Imagine what followed. 

"That Jericho road is positively frightful," says 
a British female tourist in lace cap, lilac ribbons and 
a maroon poplin dress, "the heat is most extr'or- 
dinary!" 

"No food fit to eat at the hotel," grumbles her 
husband, a rosy, bald-headed man in plaid knick- 
erbockers, "no bottled beer; beastly little hole!" 

128 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

"A voyage of the most fatiguing, of the most per- 
ilous, I assure you," says a Httle Frenchman with a 
forked beard. "But I rejoice myself of the advent- 
ure, of the romance accomplished." 

"I want to know," piped a lady in a green shirt- 
waist from Andover, Mass., " is there really and truly 
any danger?" 

"I guess not for us," answers the dominating voice 
of the conductor of her party. "There's always a 
bunch of robbers on that road, but I have hired the 
biggest man of the bunch to take care of us. Just 
wait till you see that dandy Sheikh in his best 
clothes; he looks like a museum of old weapons." 

"Have you heard," interposed a lady-like clergy- 
man on the other side of the table, with gold-rimmed 
spectacles gleaming above his high, black waistcoat, 
"what happened on the Jericho road, week before 
last.^ An English gentleman, of very good family, 
imprudently taking a short cut, became separated 
from his companions. The Bedouins fell upon him, 
beat him quite painfully, deprived him of his watch 
and several necessary garments, and left him pros- 
trate upon the earth, in an embarrassingly denuded 
129 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

condition Just fancy ! Was it not perfectly shock- 
ing?" (The clergyman's voice was full of delicious 
horror.) "But, after all," he resumed with a beam- 
ing smile, "it was most scriptural, you know, quite 
like a Providential confirmation of Holy Writ!" 

"Most unpleasant for the Englishman," growls 
the man in knickerbockers. "But what can you 
expect under this rotten Turkish government?" 

"I know a story about Jericho," begins a gentle- 
man from Colorado, with a hay-coloured moustache 
and a droop in his left eyelid — and then follows a 
series of tales about that ill-reputed town and the 
road thither, which leave the lady in the lace cap 
gasping, and the man with the forked beard visibly 
swelling with pride at having made the journey, and 
the little woman in the green shirt-waist quivering 
with exquisite fears and mentally clinging with both 
arms to the personal conductor of her party, who 
looks becomingly virile, and exchanges a surrepti- 
tious wink with the gentleman from Colorado. 

Of course, I am not willing to make an affidavit 
to the correctness of every word in this conversation; 
but I can testify that it fairly represents the Jericho- 
ISO 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

motif as you may hear it played almost any night in 
the Jerusalem hotels. It sounded to us partly like 
an echo of ancient legends kept alive by dragomans 
and officials for purposes of revenue, and partly like 
an outcrop of the hysterical habit in people who 
travel in flocks and do nothing without much 
palaver. In our quiet camp, George the Bethle- 
hemite assured us that the sheikhs were "humbugs," 
and an escort of soldiers a nuisance. So we placidly 
made our preparations to ride on the morrow, with 
no other safeguards than our friendly dispositions 
and a couple of excellent American revolvers. 

But it was no brief Ausflug to Jericho and return 
that we had before us: it was the beginning of a 
long and steady ride, weeks in the saddle, from six 
to nine hours a day. 

Imagine us then, morning after morning, mount- 
ing somewhere between six and eight o'clock, ac- 
cording to the weather and the length of the jour- 
ney, and jingling out of camp, followed at a discreet 
distance by Youssouf on his white pony with the 
luncheon, and Faris on his tiny donkey. Tiddly- 
winks. About noon, sometimes a little earlier, 
131 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

sometimes a little later, the white pony catches up 
with us, and the tent and the rugs are spread for the 
midday meal and the siesta. It may be in our 
dreams, or while the Lady is reading from some 
pleasant book, or while the smoke of the after- 
noon pipe of peace is ascending, that we hear the 
musical bells of our long baggage-train go by us on 
the way to our night-quarters. 

The evening ride is always shorter than the morn- 
ing, sometimes only an hour or two in the saddle; 
and at the end of it there is the surprise of a new 
camp ground, the comfortable tents, the refreshing 
bath tub, the quiet dinner by sunset-glow or candle- 
light. Then a bit of friendly talk over the walnuts 
and the "Treasure of Zion"; a cup of fragrant 
Turkish coffee; and George enters the door of the 
tent to report on the condition of things in general, 
and to discuss the plan of the next day's journey. 



132 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 



II 

THE GOOD SAMARITAN'S ROAD 

It is strange how every day, no matter in what 
mood of merry jesting or practical modernity we set 
out, an hour of riding in the open air brings us back 
to the mystical charm of the Holy Land and beneath 
the spell of its memories and dreams. The wild 
hillsides, the flowers of the field, the shimmering 
olive-groves, the brown villages, the crumbling ruins, 
the deep-blue sky, subdue us to themselves and 
speak to us "rememberable things." 

We pass down the Valley of the Brook Kidron, 
where no water ever flows; and through the crowd 
of beggars and loiterers and pilgrims at the cross- 
roads; and up over the shoulder of the Mount of 
Olives, past the wide-spread Jewish burying-ground, 
where we take our last look at the towers and domes 
and minarets and walls of Jerusalem. The road 
descends gently, on the other side of the hill, to Beth- 
any, a disconsolate group of hovels. The sweet 
home of Mary and Martha is gone. It is a waste of 
time to look at the uncertain ruins which are shown 
133 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

here as sacred sites. Look rather at the broad land- 
scape eastward and southward, the luminous blue 
sky, the joyful little flowers on the rocky slopes, — 
these are unchanged. 

Not far beyond Bethany, the road begins to drop, 
with great windings, into a deep, desolate valley, 
crowded with pilgrims afoot and on donkey-back 
and in ramshackle carriages, — Russians and Greeks 
returning from their sacred bath in the Jordan. 
Here and there, at first, we can see a shepherd with 
his flock upon the haggard hillside. 

"As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair 
In leprosy." 

Once the Patriarch and I, scrambling on foot 
down a short-cut, think we see a Bedouin waiting for 
us behind a rock, with his long gun over his shoul- 
der; but it turns out to be only a brown little peasant 
girl, ragged and smiling, watching her score of lop- 
eared goats. 

As the valley descends the landscape becomes 
more and more arid and stricken. The heat broods 
over it like a disease. 

134 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

"I think I never saw 
Such starved, ignoble nature; nothing throve; 
For flowers — as well expect a cedar grove!'* 

We might be on the way with Childe Roland to 
the Dark Tower. But instead we come, about noon, 
through a savage glen beset with blood-red rocks 
and honeycombed with black caves on the other side 
of the ravine, to the so-called "Inn of the Good 
Samaritan." 

The local colour of the parable surrounds us. Here 
is a fitting scene for such a drama of lawless violence, 
cowardly piety, and unconventional mercy. In 
these caverns robbers could hide securely. On this 
wild road their victim might lie and bleed to death. 
By these paths across the glen the priest and the Le- 
vite could "pass by on the other side," discreetly 
turning their heads away from any interruption to 
their selfish duties. And in some such wayside 
khan as this, standing like a lonely fortress among 
the sun-baked hills, the friendly half-heathen from 
Samaria could safely leave the stranger whom he 
had rescued, provided he paid at least a part of his 
lodging in advance. 

135 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

We eat our luncheon in one of the three big, dis- 
orderly rooms of the inn, and go on, in the cool of the 
afternoon, toward Jericho. The road still descends 
steeply, among ragged and wrinkled hills. On our 
left we look down into the Wadi el-Kelt, a gloomy 
gorge five or six hundred feet deep, with a stream of 
living water singing between its prison walls. Tradi- 
tion calls this the Brook Cherith, where Elijah hid 
himself from Ahab, and was fed by Arabs of a tribe 
called "the Ravens." But the prophet's hiding- 
place was certainly on the other side of the Jordan, 
and this Wadi is probably the Valley of Achor, 
spoken of in the Book of Joshua. On the opposite 
side of the canon, half-way down the face of the 
precipice, clings the monastery of Saint George, one 
of the pious penitentiaries to which the Greek 
Church assigns unruly and criminal monks. 

As we emerge from the narrow valley a great view 
opens before us: to the right, the blue waters of the 
Dead Sea, like a mirror of burnished steel; in front, 
the immense plain of the Jordan, with the dark- 
green ribbon of the river-jungle winding through its 
length and the purple mountains of Gilead and 

136 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

Moab towering beyond it; to the left, the furrowed 
gray and yellow ridges and peaks of the northern 
"wilderness" of Judea, the wild country into which 
Jesus retired alone after the baptism by John in the 
Jordan. 

One of these peaks, the Quarantana, is sup- 
posed to be the "high mountain" from which 
the Tempter showed Jesus the "kingdoms of the 
world." In the foreground of that view, sweeping 
from the snowy summits of Hermon in the north, 
past the Greek cities of Pella and Scythopolis, down 
the vast valley with its wealth of palms and balsams, 
must have stood the Roman city of Jericho, with its 
imperial farms and the palaces, baths and theatres 
of Herod the Great, — a visible image of what Christ 
might have won for Himself if He had yielded to the 
temptation and. turned from the pathway of spiritual 
light to follow the shadows of earthly power and 
glory. 

Herod's Jericho has vanished; there is nothing 
left of it but the outline of one of the great pools 
which he built to irrigate his gardens. The modem 
Jericho is an unhappy little adobe village, lying a 
137 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

mile or so farther to the east. A mile to the north, 
near a copious fountain of pure water, called the 
Sultan's Spring, is the site of the oldest Jericho, 
which Joshua conquered and Hiel rebuilt. The 
spring, which is probably the same that Elisha 
cleansed with salt (II Kings ii: 19-22), sends forth 
a merry stream to turn a mill and irrigate a group of 
gardens full of oranges, figs, bananas, grapes, feath- 
ery bamboos and rosy oleanders. But the ancient 
city is buried under a great mound of earth, which 
the German Paldstina-Verein is now excavating. 

As we come up to the mound I pull out my little 
camera and prepare to take a picture of the hundred 
or so dusty Arabs — men, women and children — who 
are at work in the trenches. A German gelehrter in 
a very excited state rushes up to me and calls upon 
me to halt, in the name of the Emperor. The taking 
of pictures by persons not imperially authorised is 
streng verhoten. He is evidently prepared to be abu- 
sive, if not actually violent, until I assure him, in the 
best German that I can command, that I have no 
political or archaeological intentions, and that if the 
photographing of his picturesque work-people to him 

138 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

displeasing is, I will my camera immediately in its 
pocket put. This mollifies him, and he politely 
shows us what he is doing. 

A number of ruined houses, and a sort of central 
temple, with a rude flight of steps leading up to it, 
have been discovered. A portion of what seems to 
be the city-wall has just been laid bare. If there are 
any inscriptions or relics of any value they are kept 
secret; but there is plenty of broken pottery of a 
common kind. It is all very poor and beggarly look- 
ing; no carving nor even any hewn stones. The 
buildings seem to be of rubble, and "the walls of 
Jericho " are little better than the stone fences on a 
Connecticut farm. No wonder they fell down at the 
blast of Joshua's rams' horns and the rush of his 
fierce tribesmen. 

We ride past the gardens and through the shady 
lanes to our camp, on the outskirts of the modern vil- 
lage. The air is heavy and languid, full of relaxing in- 
fluence, an air of sloth and luxury, seeming to belong 
to some strange region below the level of human duty 
and effort as far as it is below the level of the sea. 
The fragrance of the orange-blossoms, like a subtle 
139 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

incense of indulgence, floats on the evening breeze. 
Veiled figures pass us in the lanes, showing lustrous 
eyes. A sound of Oriental music and laughter and 
clapping hands comes from one of the houses in an 
inciosure hedged with acacia-trees. We sit in the 
door of our tent at sundown and dream of the van- 
ished palm-groves, the gardens of Cleopatra, the 
palaces of Herod, the soft, ignoble history of that 
region of fertility and indolence, rich in harvests, 
poor in manhood. 

Then it seems as if some one were saying, "I will 
lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh 
my help." There they stand, all about us: east- 
ward, the great purple ranges of Gad and Reuben, 
from which Elijah the Tishbite descended to rebuke 
and warn Israel; westward, against the saffron sky, 
the ridges and peaks of Judea, among which Amos 
and Jeremiah saw their lofty visions; northward, the 
clear-cut pinnacle of Sartoba, and far away beyond it 
the dim outlines of the Galilean hills from which Jesus 
of Nazareth came down to open blind eyes and to 
shepherd wandering souls. With the fading of the 
sunset glow a deep blue comes upon all the moun- 

140 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

tains, a blue which strangely seems to groY/ paler 
as the sky above them darkens, sinking down upon 
them through infinite gradations of azure into some- 
thing mysterious and indescribable, not a color, not 
a shadow, not a light, but a secret hyaline illumi- 
nation which transforms them into aerial battlements 
and ramparts, on whose edge the great stars rest and 
flame, the watch-fires of the Eternal. 

Ill 

"PASSING OVER JORDAN" 

I HAVE often wondered why the Jordan, which 
plays such an important part in the history of the 
Hebrews, receives so little honour and praise in their 
literature. Sentimental travellers and poets of other 
races have woven a good deal of florid prose and 
verse about the name of this river. There is no doubt 
that it is the chief stream of Palestine, the only one, in 
fact, that deserves to be called a river. Yet the Bible 
has no song of loving pride for the Jordan; no ten- 
der and beautiful words to describe it; no record of 
the longing of exiled Jews to return to the banks of 
141 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

their own river and hear again the voice of its wa- 
ters. At this strange silence I have wondered much, 
not knowing the reason of it. Now I know. 

The Jordan is not a httle river to be loved : it is a 
barrier to be passed over. From its beginning in the 
marshes of Huleh to its end in the Dead Sea, (ex- 
cepting only the lovely interval of the Lake of Gal- 
ilee), this river offers nothing to man but danger and 
difficulty, perplexity and trouble. Fierce and sullen 
and intractable, it jSows through a long depression, 
at the bottom of which it has dug for itself a still 
deeper crooked ditch, along the Eastern border of 
Galilee and Samaria and Judea, as if it wished to 
cut them off completely. There are no pleasant 
places along its course, no breezy forelands where a 
man might build a house with a fair outlook over 
flowing water, no rich and tranquil coves where the 
cattle would love to graze, or stand knee-deep in the 
quiet stream. There is no sense of leisure, of re- 
freshment, of kind companionship and friendly 
music about the Jordan. It is in a hurry and a 
secret rage. Yet there is something powerful, self- 
reliant, inevitable about it. In thousands of years 

142 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

it has changed less than any river in the world. It is 
a flowing, everlasting symbol of division, of separa- 
tion: a river of solemn meetings and partings like 
that of Elijah and Elisha, of Jesus and John the 
Baptist: a type of the narrow stream of death. It 
seems to say to man, "Cross me if you will, if you 
can; and then go your way." 

The road that leads us from Jericho toward the 
river is pleasant enough, at first, for the early sun- 
light is gentle and caressing, and there is a cool 
breeze moving across the plain. It is hard to believe 
that we are eight hundred feet below the sea this 
morning, and still travelling downward. The lush 
fields of barley, watered by many channels from the 
brook Kelt, are waving and glistening around us. 
Quails are running along the edge of the road, ap- 
pearing and disappearing among the thick grain- 
stalks. The bulbuls warble from the thorn-bushes, 
and a crested hoopoo croons in a jujube-tree. 
Larks are on the wing, scattering music. 

We are on the upper edge of that great belt of 
sunken land between the mountains of Gilead and 
the mountains of Ephraim and Judah, which reaches 
143 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

from the Lake of Galilee to the Dead Sea, and which 
the Arabs call El-Ghdr, the "Rift." It is a huge 
trench, from three to fourteen miles wide, sinking 
from six hundred feet below the level of the Mediter- 
ranean, at the northern end, to thirteen hundred feet 
below, at the southern end. The surface is fairly 
level, sloping gently from each side toward the 
middle, and the soil is of an inexhaustible fertility, 
yielding abundant crops wherever it is patiently 
irrigated from the streams which flow out of the 
mountains east and west, but elsewhere lying baked 
and arid under the heavy, close, feverous air. 
No strong race has ever inhabited this trench as a 
home; no great cities have ever grown here, and its 
civilization, such as it had, was a hot-bed product, 
soon ripe and quickly rotten. 

We have passed beyond the region of greenness 
already; the little water-brooks have ceased to gleam 
through the grain : the wild grasses and weeds have 
a parched and yellow look: the freshness of the 
early morning has vanished, and we are descending 
through a desolate land of sour and leprous hills of 
clay and marl, eroded by the floods into fantastic 

144 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

shapes, furrowed and scarred and scabbed with 
mineral refuse. The gullies are steep and narrow: 
the heat settles on them like a curse. 

Through this battered and crippled region, the 
centre of the Jordan Valley, runs the Jordan Bed, 
twisting like a big green serpent. A dense half- 
tropical jungle, haunted by wild beasts and poison- 
ous reptiles and insects, conceals, almost at every 
point, the down-rushing, swirling, yellow flood. 

It has torn and desolated its own shores with sud- 
den spates. The feet of the pilgrims who bathe in it 
sink into the mud as they wade out waist-deep, and 
if they venture beyond the shelter of the bank the 
whirling eddies threaten to sweep them away. The 
fords are treacherous, with shifting bottom and 
changing currents. The poets and prophets of the 
Old Testament give us a true idea of this uninhabit- 
able and unlovable river-bed when they speak of 
"the pride of Jordan," "the swellings of Jordan," 
where the lion hides among the reeds in his secret 
lair, a "refuge of lies," which the "overflowing 
scourge" shall sweep away. 

No, it was not because the Jordan was beautiful 
145 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

that John the Baptist chose it as the scene of his 
preaching and ministry, but because it was wild and 
rude, an emblem of violent and sudden change, of 
irrevocable parting, of death itself, and because in 
its one gift of copious and unfailing water, he found 
the necessary element for his deep baptism of re- 
pentance, in which the sinful past of the crowed who 
followed him was to be symbolically immersed and 
buried and washed away. 

At the place where we reach the water there is an 
open bit of ground; a miserable hovel gives shelter 
to two or three Turkish soldiers; an ungainly lat- 
ticed bridge, stilted on piles of wood, straddles the 
river with a single span. The toll is three piastres, 
(about twelve cents,) for a man and horse. 

The only place from which I can take a photo- 
graph of the river is the bridge itself, so I thrust the 
camera through one of the diamond-shaped open- 
ings on the lattice-work and try to make a truthful 
record of the lower Jordan at its best. Imagine the 
dull green of the tangled thickets, the ragged clumps 
of reeds and water-grasses, the sombre and silent 
flow of the fulvous water sliding and curling down 

146 



JERICHO AND JORDAN 

out of the jungle, and the implacable fervour of the 
pallid, searching sunlight heightening every touch 
of ugliness and desolation, and you will understand 
why the Hebrew poets sang no praise of the Jordan, 
and why Naaman the Syrian thought scorn of it 
when he remembered the lovely and fruitful rivers of 
Damascus. 



147 



A PSALM OF RIVERS 



The rivers oj God are full of water: 

They are wonderful in the renewal of their strength: 

He poureth them out from a hidden fountain. 

They are born among the hills in the high places: 
Their cradle is in the bosom of the rocks: 
The mountain is their mother and the forest is their 
father. 

They are nourished among the long grasses: 
They receive the tribute of a thousand springs: 
The rain and the snow are a heritage for them. 

They are glad to be gone from their birthplace: 
With a joyful noise they hasten away: 
They are going forever and never departed. 

The courses of the rivers are all appointed: 
They roar loudly but they follow the road: 
The finger of God hath marked their pathway. 

The rivers of Damascus rejoice among their gardens: 
The great river of Egypt is proud of his ships: 
The Jordan is lost in the Lake of Bitterness. 
148 



Surely the Lord guideth them every one in his wisdom: 

In the end he gathereth all their drops on high: 

He sendeth them forth again in the clouds of mercy, 

O my God, my life rvnneth away like a river: 
Guide me, I beseech thee, in a pathway of good: 
Let me flow in blessing to my rest in thee. 



149 



VIII 

JOURNEY TO JERASH 



I 



THROUGH THE LAND OF GILEAD 

I NEVER heard of Jerash until my friend the 
Archaeologist told me about it, one night when we 
were sitting beside my study fire at Avalon. "It is 
the site of the old city of Gerasa," said he. "The 
most satisfactory ruins that I have ever seen." 

There was something suggestive and potent in 
that phrase, "satisfactory ruins." For what is it 
that weaves the charm of ruins ? What do we ask 
of them to make their magic complete and satisfy- 
ing ? There must be an element of picturesqueness, 
certainly, to take the eye with pleasure in the con- 
trast between the frailty of man's works and the im- 
perishable loveliness of nature. There must also be 
an element of age; for new ruins are painful, dis- 
quieting, intolerable; they speak of violence and 
disorder; it is not until the bloom of antiquity gath- 
ers upon them that the relics of vast and splendid 
edifices attract us and subdue us with a spell, breath- 
153 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

ing tranquillity and noble thoughts. There must 
also be an element of magnificence in decay, of sym- 
metry broken but not destroyed, a touch of delicate 
art and workmanship, to quicken the imagination 
and evoke the ghost of beauty haunting her ancient 
habitations. And beyond these things I think there 
must be two more qualities in a ruin that satisfies 
us : a clear connection with the greatness and glory 
of the past, with some fine human achievement, 
with some heroism of men dead and gone; and last 
of all, a spirit of mystery, the secret of some unex- 
plained catastrophe, the lost link of a story never to 
be fully told. 

This, or something like it, was what the Archae- 
ologist's phrase seemed to promise me as we watched 
the glowing embers on the hearth of Avalon. And it 
is this promise that has drawn me, with my three 
friends, on this April day into the Land of Gilead, 
riding to Jerash. 

The grotesque and rickety bridge by w^hich we 
have crossed the Jordan soon disappears behind us, 
as we trot along the winding bridle-path through the 
river- jungle, in the stifling heat. Coming out on the 
154 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

open plain, which rises gently toward the east, we 
startle great flocks of storks into the air, and they 
swing away in languid circles, dappling the blaze of 
morning with their black-tipped wings. Grotesque, 
ungainly, gothic birds, they do not seem to belong to 
the Orient, but rather to have drifted hither out of 
some quaint, familiar fairy tale of the North; and 
indeed they are only transient visitors here, and will 
soon be on their way to build their nests on the roofs 
of German villages and clapper their long, yellow 
bills over the joy of houses full of little children. 

The rains of spring have spread a thin bloom of 
green over the plain. Tender herbs and Ught 
grasses partly veil the gray and stony ground. 
There is a month of scattered feeding for the flocks 
and herds. Away to the south, where the foot-hills 
begin to roll up suddenly from the Jordan, we can 
see a black line of Bedouin tents quivering through 
the heat. 

Now the trail divides, and we take the northern 
fork, turning soon into the open mouth of the Wadi 
Shaib, a broad, grassy valley between high and tree- 
less hills. The watercourse that winds down the 
155 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

middle of it is dry: nothing but a tumbled bed of 
gray rocks, — the bare bones of a little river. But as 
we ascend slowly the flowers increase; wild holly- 
hocks, and morning-glories, and clumps of blue 
anchusa, and scarlet adonis, and tall wands of white 
asphodel. 

The morning grows hotter and hotter as we plod 
along. Presently we come up with three mounted 
Arabs, riding leisurely. Salutations are exchanged 
with gravity. Then the Arabs whisper something 
to each other and spur away at a great pace ahead 
of us — laughing. Why did they laugh ? 

Ah, now we know. For here is a lofty cliff on one 
side of the valley, hanging over just far enough 
make a strip of cool shade at its base, with ferns and 
deep grass and a glimmer of dripping water. And 
here our wise Arabs are sitting at their ease to eat 
their mid-day meal under "the shadow of a great 
rock in a weary land." 

Vainly we search the valley for another rock like 
that. It is the only one; and the Arabs laughed 
because they knew it. We must content ourselves 
with this little hill where a few hawthorn bushes 
156 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

offer us tiny islets of shade, beset with thorns, and 
separated by straits of intolerable glare. Here we 
eat a little, but without comfort; and sleep a little, 
but without refreshment; and talk a little, but rest- 
lessly. As soon as we dare, we get into the saddle 
again and toil up through the valley, now narrowing 
into a rugged gorge, crammed with ardent heat. 
The sprinkling of trees and bushes, the multitude of 
flowers, assure us that there must be moisture under- 
ground, along the bed of the stream; but above 
ground there is not a drop, and not a breath of wind 
to break the dead calm of the smothering air. Why 
did we come into this heat-trap ? 

But presently the ravine leads us, by steep stairs 
of rock, up to a high, green table-land. A heavenly 
breeze from the west is blowing here. The fields are 
full of flowers — red anemones, white and yellow 
daisies, pink flax, little blue bell-flowers — a hundred 
kinds. One knoll is covered with cyclamens; an- 
other with splendid purple iris, immense blossoms, 
so dark that they look almost black against the 
grass; but hold them up to the sun and you will see 
the imperial colour. We have never found such 
157 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

wild flowers, not even on the Plain of Sharon; the 
hills around Jerusalem were but sparsely adorned in 
comparison with these highlands of bloom. 

And here are oak-trees, broad-limbed and friendly, 
clothed in glistening green. Let us rest for a while 
in this cool shade and forget the misery of the blaz- 
ing noon. Below us lies the gray Jordan valley and 
the steel-blue mirror of the Dead Sea; and across that 
gulf we see the furrowed mountains of Judea and 
Samaria, and far to the north the peaks of Galilee. 
Around us is the Land of Gilead, a rolling hill- 
country, with long ridges and broad summits, a 
rounded land, a verdurous land, a land of rich past- 
urage. There are deep valleys that cut into it and 
divide it up. But the main bulk of it is lifted high 
in the air, and spread out nobly to the visitations of 
the wind. And see — far away there, to the south, 
across the Wadi Nimrin, a mountainside covered 
with wild trees, a real woodland, almost a forest ! 

Now we must travel on, for it is still a long way to 
our night-quarters at Es Salt. We pass several 
Bedouin camps, the only kind of villages in this 
part of the world. The tents of goat's-hair are swarm- 
158 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

ing with life. A score of ragged Arab boys are 
playing hockey on the green with an old donkey's 
hoof for a ball. They yell with refreshing vigour, 
just like universal human boys. 

The trail grows steeper and more rocky, ascend- 
ing apparently impossible places, and winding peril- 
ously along the cliffs above little vineyards and 
cultivated fields where men are ploughing. Travel 
and trafiic increase along this rude path, which is 
the only highway: evidently we are coming near to 
some place of importance. 

But where is Es Salt? For nine hours we have 
been in the saddle, riding steadily toward that mys- 
terious metropolis of the Belka, the only living city 
in the Land of Gilead; and yet there is no trace of it 
in sight. Have we missed the trail? The mule-train 
with our tents and baggage passed us in the valley 
while we were sweltering under the hawthorns. It 
seems as if it must have vanished into the pastoral 
wilderness and left us travelling an endless road to 
nowhere. 

At last we top a rugged ridge and look down upon 
the solution of the mystery. Es Salt is a city that 
159 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

can be hid; for it is not set upon a hill, but tucked 
away in a valley that curves around three sides of a 
rocky eminence, and is sheltered from the view by 
higher ranges. 

Who can tell how this city came here, hidden 
in this hollow place almost three thousand feet 
above the sea? Who was its founder? What 
was its ancient name? It is a place without tra- 
ditions, without antiquities, without a shrine of any 
kind; just a living town, thriving and prospering 
in its own dirty and dishevelled way, in the midst 
of a country of nomads, growing in the last twenty 
years from six thousand to fifteen thousand inhabi- 
tants, driving a busy trade with the surrounding 
country, exporting famous raisins and dye-stuff 
made from sumach, the seat of the Turkish Govern- 
ment of the Belka, with a garrison and a telegraph 
office — decidedly a thriving town of to-day; yet 
without a road by which a carriage can approach it; 
and old, unmistakably old ! 

The castle that crowns the eminence in the centre 
is a ruin of unknown date. The copious spring that 
gushes from the castle-hill must have invited men 

160 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

for many centuries to build their habitations around 
it. The gray houses seem to have slipped and set- 
tled down into the curving valley, and to have 
crowded one another up the opposite slopes, as if 
hundreds of generations had found here a hiding- 
place and a city of refuge. 

We ride through a Mohammedan graveyard — 
unfenced, broken, neglected — and down a steep, 
rain-gulleyed hillside, into the filthy, narrow street. 
The people all have an Arab look, a touch of the 
wildness of the desert in their eyes and their free 
bearing. There are many fine figures and handsome 
faces, some with auburn hair and a reddish hue 
showing through the bronze of their cheeks. They 
stare at us with undisguised curiosity and wonder, 
as if we came from a strange world. The swarthy 
merchants in the doors of their little shops, the half- 
veiled women in the lanes, the groups of idlers at the 
corners of the streets, watch us with a gaze which 
seems almost defiant. Evidently tourists are a rarity 
here — perhaps an intrusion to be resented. 

We inquire whether our baggage-train has been 
seen, where our camp is pitched. No one knows, 
161 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

no one cares; until at last a ragged, smiling urchin, 
one of those blessed, ubiquitous boys who always 
know ever}i;hing that happens in a town, offers to 
guide us. He trots ahead, full of importance, dodg- 
ing through the narrow alleys, making the complete 
circuit of the castle-hill and leading us to the upper 
end of the eastern valley. Here, among a few olive- 
trees beside the road, our white tents are standing, 
so close to an encampment of wandering g}'psies that 
the tent-ropes cross. 

Directly opposite rises a quarter of the town, tier 
upon tier of flat-roofed houses, every roof-top covered 
with people. A wild -looking crowd of visitors have 
gathered in the road. Two soldiers, with the ap- 
pearance of partially reformed brigands, are acting 
as our guard, and keeping the inquisitive spectators 
at a respectful distance. Our mules and donkeys 
and horses are munching their supper in a row, teth- 
ered to a long rope in front of the tents. Shukari, 
the cook, in liis white cap and apron, is gravely intent 
upon the operation of his little charcoal range. 
Youssouf, the major-doino, is setting the table with 
flow^ers and lighted candles in the dining-tent. After 

162 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

a while he comes to the door of our sleeping-tents to 
inform us, with due ceremony, that dinner is served; 
and we sit down to our repast in the midst of the 
swarming Edomites and the wandering Zingari as 
peacefully and properly as if we were dining at the 
Savoy. 

The night darkens around us. Lights twinkle, 
one above another, up the steep hillside of houses; 
above them are the tranquil stars, the lit windows of 
unknown habitations; and on the hill-top one great 
planet bums in liquid flame. 

The crowd melts away, chattering down the road; 
it forms again, from another quarter, and again dis- 
solves. Meaningless shouts and cries and songs re- 
sound from the hidden city. In the gypsy camp beside 
us insomnia reigns. A little forge is clinking and 
clanking. Donkeys raise their antiphonal lament. 
Dogs salute the stars in chorus. First a leader, far 
away, lifts a wailing, howling, shrieking note; then the 
mysterious unrest that torments the bosom of Ori- 
ental dogdom breaks loose in a hundred, a thousand 
answering voices, swelling into a yapping, growling, 
barking, yelHng discord. A sudden silence cuts the 
163 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

tumult short, until once more the unknown misery, 
(or is it the secret joy), of the canine heart bursts out 
in long-drawn dissonance. 

From the road and from the tents of the gypsies 
various human voices are sounding close around us 
all the night. Through our confused dreams and 
broken sleep we strangely seem to catch fragments of 
familiar speech, phrases of English or French or Ger- 
man. Then, waking and listening, we hear men 
muttering and disputing, women complaining or 
soothing their babies, children quarrelling or calHng 
to each other, in Arabic, or Romany — not a word 
that we can understand — voices that tell us only 
that we are in a strange land, and very far away 
from home, camping in the heart of a wild city. 



164 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 



II 

OVER THE BROOK JABBOK 

After such a night the morning is welcome, as it 
breaks over the eastern hill behind us, with rosy light 
creeping slowly down the opposite slope of houses. 
Before the sunbeams have fairly reached the bot- 
tom of the valley we are in the saddle, ready to 
leave Es Salt without further exploration. 

There is a general monotony about this riding 
through Palestine which yet leaves room for a par- 
ticular variety of the most entrancing kind. Every 
day is like every other in its main outline, but the 
details are infinitely uncertain — always there is 
something new, some touch of a distinct and mem- 
orable charm. 

To-day it is the sense of being in the country of 
the nomads, the tent-dwellers, the masters of innu- 
merable flocks and herds, whose wealth goes wander- 
ing from pasture to pasture, bleating and lowing and 
browsing and multiplying over the open moorland 
beneath the blue sky. This is the prevailing im- 
165 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

pression of this day: and the symbol of it is the thin, 
quavering music of the pastoral pipe, following us 
wherever we go, drifting tremulously and plaintively 
down from some rock on the hillside, or floating up 
softly from some hidden valley, where a brown shep- 
herd or goatherd is minding his flock with music. 

What quaint and rustic melodies are these ! Wild 
and unfamiliar to our ears; yet doubtless the same 
wandering airs that were played by the sons and 
servants of Jacob when he returned from his twenty 
years of profitable exile in Haran with his rich wages 
of sheep and goats and cattle and wives and maid- 
servants, the fruit of his hard labour and shrewd bar- 
gaining with his father-in-law Laban, and passed 
cautiously through Gilead on his way to the Prom- 
ised Land. 

On the highland to the east of Es Salt we see a 
fine herd of horses, brood-mares and foals. A little 
farther on, we come to a muddy pond or tank at 
which a drove of asses are drinking. A steep and 
winding path, full of loose stones, leads us down 
into a grassy, oval plain, a great cup of green, eight 
or ten miles long and five or six miles wide, rimmed 

166 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

with bare hills from five to eight hundred feet high. 
This, we conjecture, is the fertile basin of El Buchaia, 
or Bekaa. 

Bedouin farmers are ploughing the rich, reddish 
soil. Their black tent- villages are tucked away 
against the feet of the surrounding hills. The broad 
plain itself is without sign of human dwelling, except 
that near each focus of the ellipse there is a pile of 
shattered ruins with a crumbling, solitary tower, 
where a shepherd sits piping to his lop-eared flock. 

In one place we pass through a breeding-herd of 
camels, browsing on the short grass. The old ones 
are in the process of the spring moulting; their 
thick, matted hair is peeling off in large flakes, like 
fragments of a ragged, moth-eaten coat. The young 
ones are covered with pearl-gray wool, soft and al- 
most downy, like gigantic goslings with four legs. 
(What is the word for a young camel, I wonder; is 
is camelet or camelot ?) But young and old have a 
family resemblance of ugliness. 

The camel is the most ungainly and stupid of 

God's useful beasts — an awkward necessity — ^the 

humpbacked ship of the desert. The Arabs have 
167 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

a story which runs thus: "What did Allah say when 
He had finished making the camel ? He couldn't 
say anything; He just looked at the camel, and 
laughed, and laughed ! " 

But in spite of his ridiculous appearance the camel 
seems satisfied with himself; in fact there is an ex- 
pression of supreme contempt in his face when he 
droops his pendulous lower lip and wrinkles his 
nose, which has led the Arabs to tell another story 
about him: "Why does the camel despise his mas- 
ter? Because man knows only the ninety-nine 
common names of Allah; but the hundredth name, 
the wonderful name, the beautiful name, is a secret 
revealed to the camel alone. Therefore he scorns 
the whole race of men." 

The cattle that feed around the edges of this peace- 
ful plain are small and nimble, as if they were used 
to long, rough journeys. The prevailing colour is 
black, or rusty brown. They are evidently of a de- 
generate and played-out stock. Even the heifers are 
used for ploughing, and they look but little larger 
than the donkeys which are often yoked beside them. 
They come around the grassy knoll when our lunch- 

168 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

eon-tent is pitched, and stare at us very much as the 
people stared in Es Salt. 

In the afternoon we pass over the rim of the 
broad vale and descend a narrower ra^dne, where 
oaks and terebinths, laurels and balsams, pistachios 
and almonds are growing. The grass springs thick 
and lush, tall weeds and trailing vines appear, a 
murmur of flowing water is heard under the tangled 
herbage at the bottom of the wadi. Presently we are 
following a bright little brook, crossing and recrossing 
it as it leads us toward our camp-ground. 

There are the tents, standing in a Kne on the 
flowery bank of the brook, across the water from the 
trail. A few steps lower down there is a well-built 
stone basin with a copious spring gushing into it 
from the hillside under an arched roof. Here the 
people of the village, (which is somewhere near us 
on the mountain, but out of sight), come to fill their 
pitchers and water-skins, and to let their cattle and 
donkeys drink. All through the late afternoon they 
are coming and going, plashing through the shaUow 
ford below us, enjoying the cool, clear water, disap- 
pearing along the foot-paths that lead among the hills. 
169 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

These are very different cattle from the herds we 
saw among the Bedouins a couple of hours ago ; fine 
large creatures, well bred and well fed, some cream- 
coloured, some red, some belted with white. And 
these men who follow them, on foot or on horseback, 
truculent looking fellows with blue eyes and light 
hair and broad faces, clad in long, close-fitting tunics, 
with belts around their waists and small black caps 
of fur, some of them w ith high boots — who are they ? 

They are some of the Circassian immigrants who 
were driven out of Russia by the Czar after the 
Russo-Turkish War of 1877, and deported again 
after the Bulgarian atrocities, and whom the Turk- 
ish Government has colonized through eastern Pal- 
estine on land given by the Sultan. Nobody really 
knows to whom the land belongs, I suppose; but the 
Bedouins have had the habit, for many centuries, of 
claiming and using it as they pleased for their roam- 
ing flocks and herds. Now these northern invaders 
are taking and holding the most fertile places, the 
best springs, the fields that are well watered through 
the year. 

Therefore the Arab hates the Circassian, though 
170 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

he be of the same rehgion, far more than he hates 
the Christian, almost as much as he hates the Turk. 
But the Circassian can take care of himself; he is a 
fierce and hardy fighter; and in his rude way he un- 
derstands how to make farming and stock-raising 
pay. 

Indeed, this Land of Gilead is a region in which 
twenty times the present population, if they were in- 
dustrious and intelligent and had good government, 
might prosper. No wonder that the tribe of Gad 
and Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh, on the 
way to Canaan, "when they saw the land of Jazer 
and the land of Gilead, that, behold, the place was 
a place for cattle," (Numbers xxxii) fell in love with 
it, and besought Moses that they might have their 
inheritance there, and not westward of the Jordan. 
No wonder that they recrossed the river after they 
had helped Joshua to conquer the Canaanites, and 
settled in this high country, so much fairer and more 
fertile than Judea, or even than Samaria. 

It was here, in 1880, that Laurence Oliphant, the 
gifted English traveller and mystic, proposed to 
establish his fine scheme for the beginning of the 
171 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

restoration of the Jews to Palestine. A territory ex- 
tending from the brook of Jabbok on the north to 
the brook of Arnon on the south, from the Jordan 
Valley on the west to the Arabian desert on the east ; 
railways running up from the sea at Haifa, and 
down from Damascus, and southward to the Gulf of 
Akabah, and across to Ismailia on the Suez Canal; 
a government of local autonomy guaranteed and 
protected by the Sublime Porte; sufficient capital sup- 
plied by the Jewish bankers of London and Paris 
and Berlin and Vienna; and the outcasts of Israel 
gathered from all the countries where they are op- 
pressed, to dwell together in peace and plenty, tend- 
ing sheep and cattle, raising fruit and grain, pressing 
out wine and oil, and supplying the world with 
the balm of Gilead — such was Oliphant's beautiful 
dream. 

But it did not come true; because Russia did 
not like it, because Turkey was afraid of it, be- 
cause the rest of Europe did not care for it, — and 
perhaps because the Jews themselves were not gen- 
erally enthusiastic over it. Perhaps the majority of 
them would rather stay where they are. Perhaps 

172 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

they do not yearn passionately for Palestine and 
the simple life. 

But it is not of these things that we are thinking, 
I must confess, as the ruddy sun slowly drops toward 
the heights of Fennel, and we stroll out in the even- 
ing glow, along the edge of the wild ravine into 
which our little stream plunges, and look down into 
the deep, grand valley of the Brook Jabbok. 

Yonder, on the other side of the great gulf of 
heliotrope shadow, stretches the long bulk of the 
Jebel Ajlun, shaggy with oak-trees. It was some- 
where on the slopes of that wooded mountain that 
one of the most tragic battles of the world was fought. 
For there the army of Absalom went out to meet the 
army of his father David. "And the battle was 
spread over the face of all the country, and the forest 
devoured more people that day than the sword de- 
voured." It was there that the young man Absalom 
rode furiously upon his mule, "and the mule went 
under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head 
caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between 
heaven and earth." And a man came and told Joab, 
the captain of David's host, "Behold I saw Absalom 
173 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

hanging in the midst of an oak." Then Joab made 
haste; "and he took three darts in his hand, and 
thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he 
was yet alive in the midst of the oak." And when 
the news came to David, sitting in the gate of the 
city of Mahanaim, he went up into the chamber over 
the gate and wept bitterly, crying, "Would I had 
died for thee, O Absalom, my son!" (II Samuel 
xviii.) 

To remember a story like that is to feel the pathos 
with which man has touched the face of nature. 
But there is another story, more mystical, more 
beautiful, which belongs to the scene upon which 
w^e are looking. Down in the purple valley, where 
the smooth meadows spread so fair, and the little 
river curves and gleams through the thickets of 
oleander, somewhere along that flashing stream is 
the place where Jacob sent his wives and his chil- 
dren, his servants and his cattle, across the water in 
the darkness, and there remained all night long alone, 
for "there wrestled a man with him until the break- 
ing of the day." 

Who was this "man" with whom the patriarch 
174 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

contended at midnight, and to whom he cried, "I 
will not let thee go except thou bless me"? On 
the morrow Jacob was to meet his fierce and power- 
ful brother Esau, whom he had wronged and out- 
witted, from whom he had stolen the birthright 
blessing twenty years before. Was it the prospect of 
this dreaded meeting that brought upon Jacob the 
night of lonely struggle by the Brook Jabbok ? Was 
it the promise of reconciliation with his brother that 
made him say at dawn, "I have seen God face to 
face, and my life is saved" ? Was it the unexpected 
friendliness and gentleness of that brother in the 
encounter of the morning that inspired Jacob's cry, 
"I have seen thy face as one seeth the jace of God, and 
thou wast pleased with me" ? 

Yes, that is what the old story means, in its 
Oriental imagery. The midnight wrestling is the 
pressure of human enmity and strife. The morning 
peace is the assurance of human forgiveness and 
love. The face of God seen in the face of human 
kindness — that is the sunrise vision of the Brook 
Jabbok. 

Such are the thoughts with which we fall asleep 
175 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

in our tents beside the murmuring brook of Er 
Rumman. Early the next morning we go down, 
and down, and down, by ledge and terrace and 
grassy slope, into the Vale of Jabbok. It is sixty 
miles long, beginning on the edge of the mountain 
of Moab, and curving eastward, northward, west- 
ward, south-westward, between Gilead and Ajltln, 
until it opens into the Jordan Valley. 

Here is the famous little river, a swift, singing 
current of gray-blue water — Nahr ez-Zerka "blue 
river," the Arabs call it — dashing and swirling 
merrily between the thickets of willows and tama- 
racks and oleanders that border it. The ford is 
rather deep, for the spring flood is on; but our 
horses splash through gaily, scattering the water 
around them in showers which glitter in the sunshine. 

Is this the brook beside which a man once met 
God ? Yes — and by many another brook too. 



176 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 



III 

THE RUINS OF GERASA 

We are coming now into the region of the Decap- 
oHs, the Greek cities which sprang up along the 
eastern border of Palestine after the conquests of 
Alexander the Great. 

They were trading cities, undoubtedly, situated 
on the great roads which led from the east across 
the desert to the Jordan Valley, and so, converging 
upon the Plain of Esdraelon, to the Mediterranean 
Sea and to Greece and Italy. Their wealth tempted 
the Jewish princes of the Hasmonean line to conquer 
and plunder them; but the Roman general Pompey 
restored their civic liberties, b. c. 65, and caused them 
to be rebuilt and strengthened. By the beginning 
of the Christian era, they were once more rich and 
flourishing, and a league was formed of ten munici- 
palities, with certain rights of communal and local 
government, under the protection and suzerainty of 
the Roman Empire. 

The ten cities which originally composed this con- 
177 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

federacy for mutual defence and the development 
of their trade, were Scythopolis, Hippos, Damascus, 
Gadara, Raphana, Kanatha, Pella, Dion, Philadel- 
phia and Gerasa. Their money was stamped with 
the image of Caesar. Their soldiers followed the 
Imperial eagles. Their traditions, their arts, their 
literature were Greek. But their strength and their 
new prosperity were Roman. 

Here in this narrow wadi through which we are 
climbing up from the Vale of Jabbok we find the 
traces of the presence of the Romans in the frag- 
ments of a paved military road and an aqueduct. 
Presently we surmount a rocky hill and look down 
into the broad, shallow basin of Jerash. Gently 
sloping, rock-strewn hills surround it; through the 
centre flows a stream, with banks bordered by trees ; 
a water-fall is flashing opposite to us; on a cluster 
of rounded knolls about the middle of the valley, on 
the west bank of the stream, are spread the vast, 
incredible, complete ruins of the ancient city of 
Gerasa. 

They rise like a dream in the desolation of the 
wilderness, columns and arches and vaults and 

178 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

amphitheatres and temples, suddenly appearing in 
the bare and lonely landscape as if by enchantment. 

How came these monuments of splendour and per- 
manence into this country of simplicity and tran- 
sience, this land of shifting shepherds and drovers, 
this empire of the black tent, this immemorial region 
that has slept away the centuries under the spell of 
the pastoral pipe ? What magical music of another 
kind, strong, stately and sonorous, music of brazen 
trumpets and shawms, of silver harps and cymbals, 
evoked this proud and potent city on the border of 
the desert, and maintained for centuries, amid the 
sweeping, turbulent floods of untamable tribes of 
rebels and robbers, this lofty landmark of 

** the glory that was Greece 
And the grandeur that was Rome " ? 

What sudden storm of discord and disaster shook it 
all down again, loosened the sinews of majesty and 
power, stripped away the garments of beauty and 
luxury, dissolved the lovely body of living joy, and 
left this skeleton of dead splendour diffused upon the 
solitary ground ? 

179 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

Who can solve these mysteries ? It is all unac- 
countable, unbelievable, — the ghost of the dream of 
a dream, — ^yet here it is, surrounded by the green 
hills, flooded with the frank light of noon, neigh- 
boured by a dirty, noisy little village of Arabs and 
Circassians on the east bank of the stream, and with 
real goats and lean, black cattle grazing between the 
carved columns and under the broken architraves of 
Gerasa the Golden. 

Let us go up into the wrecked city. 

This triumphal arch, with its three gates and its 
lofty Corinthian columns, stands outside of the city 
walls : a structure which has no other use or meaning 
than the expression of Imperial pride : thus the Ro- 
man conquerors adorn and approach their vassal- 
town. 

Behind the arch a broad, paved road leads to the 
southern gate, perhaps a thousand feet away. Be- 
side the road, between the arch and the gate, lie two 
buildings of curious interest. The first is a great 
pool of stone, seven hundred feet long by three hun- 
dred feet wide. This is the Naumachia, which is 
filled with water by conduits from the neighbouring 

180 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

stream, in order that the Greeks may hold their 
mimic naval combats and regattas here in the desert, 
for they are always at heart a seafaring people. Be- 
yond the pool there is a Circus, with four rows of 
stone seats and an oval arena, for wild-beast shows 
and gladiatorial combats. 

The city walls have almost entirely disappeared 
and the South Gate is in ruins. Entering and turning 
to the left, we ascend a Uttle hill and find the Temple 
(perhaps dedicated to Artemis), and close beside it 
the great South Theatre. There is hardly a break 
in the semicircular stone benches, thirty-two rows of 
seats rising tier above tier, divided into an upper 
and a lower section by a broader row of "boxes" or 
stalls, richly carved, and reserved, no doubt, for 
magnates of the city and persons of importance. 
The stage, over a hundred feet wide, is backed 
by a straight wall adorned with Corinthian col- 
umns and decorated niches. The theatre faces due 
north; and the spectator sitting here, if the play 
wearies him, can lift his eyes and look off beyond 
the proscenium over the length and breadth of 
Gerasa. 

181 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

"But he looked upon the city, every side. 
Far and wide. 
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades 
Colonnades, 

All the causeys, bridges, acqueducts, — and then, 
All the men!" 

In the hollow northward from this theatre is the 
Forum, or the Market-place, or the Hippodrome — 
I cannot tell what it is, but a splendid oval of Ionic 
pillars incloses an open space of more than three 
hundred feet in length and two hundred and fifty 
feet in width, where the Gerasenes may barter or 
bicker or bet, as they will. 

From the Forum to the North Gate runs the 
main street, more than half a mile long, lined with 
a double row of columns, from twenty to thirty feet 
high, with smooth shafts and acanthus capitals. At 
the intersection of the cross-streets there are tetra- 
pylons, with domes, and pedestals for statues. The 
pavement of the roadway is worn into ruts by the 
chariot wheels. Under the arcades behind the col- 
umns run the sidewalks for foot-passengers. Turn 
to the right from the main street and you come to 

182 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

the Public Baths, an immense building like a pal- 
ace, supplied with hot and cold water, adorned with 
marble and mosaic. On the left Ues the Tribuna, 
with its richly decorated fa9ade and its fountain of 
flowing water. A few yards farther north is the 
Propylseum of the Great Temple; a superb gateway, 
decorated with columns and garlands and shell 
niches, opening to a wide flight of steps by which we 
ascend to the temple-area, a terrace nearly twice the 
size of Madison Square Garden, surrounded by two 
hundred and sixty columns, and standing clear above 
the level of the encircling city. 

The Temple of the Sun rises at the western end 
of this terrace, facing the dawn. The huge colunms 
of the portico, forty-five feet high and five feet in 
diameter, with rich Corinthian capitals, are of rosy- 
yellow limestone, which seems to be saturated with 
the sunshine of a thousand years. Behind them are 
the walls of the Cella, or inner shrine, with its vaulted 
apse for the image of the god, and its secret stairs 
and passages in the rear wall for the coming and 
going of the priests, and the ascent to the roof for the 
first salutation of the sunrise over the eastern hills. 
183 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

Spreading our cloth between two pillars of the 
portico we celebrate the feast of noontide, and look- 
ing out over the wrecked magnificence of the city we 
try to reconstruct the past. 

It was in the days of Antoninus Pius and Marcus 
Aurelius, in the latter part of the second century after 
Christ, that these temples and palaces and theatres 
were rising. Those were the palmy days of Graeco- 
Roman civilisation in Syria; then the shops along the 
Colonnade were filled with rich goods, the Forum 
listened to the voice of world-famous orators and 
teachers, and proud lords and ladies assembled in the 
Naumachia to watch the sham battles of the miniature 
galleys. A little later the new religion of Christianity 
found a foothold here, (see, these are the ruined out- 
lines of a Christian church below us to the south, 
and the foundation of a great Basilica), and by the 
fifth century the pagan worship was dying out, and 
the Bishop of Gerasa had a seat in the Council of 
Chalcedon. It was no longer with the comparative 
merits of Stoicism and Epicureanism and Neo-Pla- 
tonism, or with the rival literary fame of their own 
Ariston and Kerykos as against Meleager and Me- 

184 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

nippus and Theodorus of Gadara, that the Gerasenes 
concerned themselves. They were busy now with 
the controversies about Homoiousia and Homoousia, 
with the rivalry of the Eutychians and the Nestori- 
ans, with the conflicting, not to say combative, 
claims of such saints as Dioscurus of Alexandria and 
Theodoret of Cyrus. But trade continued brisk, and 
the city was as rich and as proud as ever. In the 
seventh century an Arabian chronicler named it 
among the great towns of Palestine, and a poet 
praised its fertile territory and its copious spring. 

Then what happened? Earthquake, pestilence, 
conflagration, pillage, devastation — ^who knows? 
A Mohammedan writer of the thirteenth century 
merely mentions it as "a great city of ruins"; and 
so it lay, deserted and forgotten, until a German 
traveller visited it in 1806; and so it lies to-day, with 
all its dwellings and its walls shattered and dissolved 
beside its flowing stream in the centre of its green 
valley, and only the relics of its temples, its theatres, 
its colonnades, and its triumphal arch remaining to 
tell us how brave and rich and gay it was in the days 
of old. 

185 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

Do you believe it? Does it seem at all real or 
possible to you? Look up at this tall pillar above 
us. See how the wild marjoram has thrust its roots 
between the joints and hangs like "the hyssop that 
springeth out of the wall." See how the weather has 
worn deep holes and crevices in the topmost drum, 
and how the sparrows have made their nests there. 
Lean your back against the pillar; feel it vibrate like 
"a reed shaken with the wind"; watch that huge 
capital of acanthus leaves swaying slowly to and fro 
and trembling upon its stalk "as a flower of the 
field." 

All the afternoon and all the next morning we 
wander through the ruins, taking photographs, de- 
ciphering inscriptions, discovering new points of view 
to survey the city. We sit on the arch of the old 
Roman bridge which spans the stream, and look 
down into the valley filled with gardens and or- 
chards; tall poplars shiver in the breeze; peaches, 
plums, and cherries are in bloom; almonds clad in 
pale-green foliage; figs putting forth their verdant 
shoots; pomegranates covered with ruddy young 

186 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

leaves. We go up to see the beautiful spring which 
bursts from the hillside above the town and supplies 
it with water. Then we go back again to roam aim- 
lessly and dreamily, like folk bewitched, among the 
tumbled heaps of hewn stones, the broken capitals, 
and the tall, rosy columns, soaked with sunbeams. 

The Arabs of Jerash have a bad reputation as 
robbers and extortionists; and in truth they are 
rather a dangerous-looking lot of fellows, with bold, 
handsome brown faces and inscrutable dark eyes. 
But although we have paid no tribute to them, they 
do not molest us. They seem to regard us with a 
contemptuous pity, as harmless idiots who loaf 
among the fallen stones and do not even attempt to 
make excavations. 

Our camp is in the inclosure of the North Theatre, 
a smaller building than that which stands beside the 
South Gate, but large enough to hold an audience of 
two or three thousand. The semicircle of seats is 
still unbroken; the arrangements of the stage, the 
stairways, the entries of the building can all be easily 
traced. 

There were gay times in the city when these two 
187 



A JOURNEY TO JERASH 

theatres were filled with people. What comedies of 
Plautus or Terence or Aristophanes or Menander; 
what tragedies of Seneca, or of the seven dramatists 
of Alexandria who were called the "Pleias," were 
presented here? 

Look up along those lofty tiers of seats in the 
pale, clear starlight. Can you see no shadowy 
figures sitting there, hear no light whisper of ghostly 
laughter, no thin ripple of clapping hands ? What 
flash of wit amuses them, what nobly tragic word 
or action stirs them to applause ? What problem of 
their own life, what reflection of their own heart, 
does the stage reveal to them ? We shall never know. 
The play at Gerasa is ended. 



188 



A PSALM AMONG THE RUINS 

The lizard rested on the rock while I sat among the 
ruins; 

And the pride of man was like a vision of the 
night. 

Lo, the lords of the city have disappeared into dark- 
ness; 

The ancient wilderness hath swallowed up all their 
work. 

There is nothing left of the city hut a heap of frag- 
ments; 

The hones of a carcass that a wild heast hath de- 
voured. 

Behold the desert waiteth hungrily for man^s dwell- 
ings; 

Surely the tide of desolation returneth upon his 
toil. 

All that he hath painfully lifted up is shaken down 

in a moment; 
The memory of his glory is huried heneath the billows 

of sand. 

189 



Then a voice said^ Look again upon the ruins; 
These broken arches have taught generations to build 

Moreover the name of this city shall he remembered; 
Here a poor man spoke a word that shall not die. 

This is the glory that is stronger than the desert; 
For God hath given eternity to the thought of man. 



190 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 



I 



JORDAN FERRY 

Look down from these tranquil heights of Jebel 
Osha, above the noiseful, squalid little city of Es 
Salt, and you see what Moses saw when he cUmbed 
Mount Pisgah and looked upon the Promised Land 
which he was never to enter. 

"Could we but climb where Moses stood, 
And view the landscape o'er. 
Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood. 
Should fright us from the shore." 

Pisgah was probably a few miles south of the 
place where we are now standing, but the main 
features of the view are the same. These broad 
mountain-shoulders, falling steeply away to the west, 
clad in the emerald robe of early spring; this im- 
mense guK at our feet, four thousand feet below 
us, a huge trough of gray and yellow, through which 
the dark-green ribbon of the Jordan jungle, touched 
193 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

with a few silvery gleams of water, winds to the 
blue basin of the Dead Sea; those scarred and 
wrinkled hills rising on the other side, the knotted 
brow of Quarantana, the sharp cone of Sartoba, the 
distant peak of Mizpeh, the long line of Judean, 
Samarian, and Galilean summits. Olivet, and Ebal, 
and Gerizim, and Gilboa, and Tabor, rolling away 
to the northward, growing ever fairer with the prom- 
ise of fertile valleys between them and rich plains 
beyond them, and fading at last into the azure 
vagueness of the highlands round the Lake of 
Galilee. 

Why does that country toward which we are look- 
ing and travelling seem to us so much more familiar 
and real, so much more a part of the actual world, 
than this region of forgotten Greek and Roman 
glory, from which we are returning like those who 
awake from sleep ? The ruined splendours of Jerash 
fade behind us like a dream. Samaria and Galilee, 
crowded with memories and associations which have 
been woven into our minds by the wonderful Bible 
story, draw us to them with the convincing touch of 
reality. Yet even while we recognise this strange 
194 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

difference between our feelings toward the Holy 
Land and those toward other parts of the ancient 
world, we know that it is not altogether true. 

Gerasa was as really a part of God's big world as 
Shechem or Jezreel or Sychar. It stood in His 
sight, and He must have regarded the human souls 
that lived there. He must have cared for them, and 
watched over them, and judged them equitably, 
dividing the just from the unjust, the children of love 
from the children of hate, even as He did with men 
on the other side of the Jordan, even as He does with 
all men everywhere to-day. If faith in a God who is 
the Father and Lord of all mankind means any- 
thing it means this: equal care, equal justice, equal 
mercy for all the world. Gerasa has been forgotten 
of men, but God never forgot it. 

What, then, is the difference .^^ Just this: in the 
little land between the Jordan and the sea, things 
came to pass which have a more enduring signifi- 
cance than the wars and splendours, the wealth and 
culture of the Decapolis. Conflicts were fought there 
in which the eternal issues of good and evil were 
clearly manifest. Ideas were worked out there which 
195 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

have a permanent value to the spiritual life of man. 
Revelations were made there which have become the 
guiding stars of succeeding generations. This is 
why that country of the Bible seems more real to us : 
because its history is more significant, because it is 
Divinely inspired with a meaning for our faith and 
hope. 

Do you agree with this ? I do not know. But at 
least if you were with us on this glorious morning, 
riding down from the heights of Jebel Osha you 
would feel the vivid beauty, the subduing grandeur 
of the scene. You would rejoice in the life-renewing 
air that blows softly around us and invites us to 
breathe deep, — in the pure morning faces of the 
flowers opening among the rocks, — in the light 
waving of silken grasses along the slopes by which 
we steeply descend. 

There is a young Gileadite running beside us, a 
fine fellow about eighteen years old, with his white 
robe girded up about his loins, lea%4ng his brown 
legs bare. His head-dress is encircled with the black 
^agal of camel's hair like a rustic crown. A long 
gun is slung over his back; a wicked-looking curved 

196 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

knife with a brass sheath sticks in his belt; his silver 
powder-horn and leather bullet-pouch hang at his 
waist. He strides along with a free, noble step, or 
springs lightly from rock to rock like a gazelle. 

His story is a short one, and simple, — if true. His 
younger brother has run away from the family tent 
among the pastures of Gilead, seeking his fortune 
in the wide world. And now this elder brother has 
come out to look for the prodigal, at Nablus, at 
Jaffa, at Jerusalem, — ^Allah knows how far the 
quest may lead! But he is afraid of robbers if he 
crosses the Jordan Valley alone. May he keep 
company with us and make the perilous transit 
under our august protection? Yes, surely, my 
brown son of Esau; and we will not inquire too 
closely whether you are really running after your 
brother or running away yourself. 

There may be a thousand robbers concealed along 
the river-bed, but we can see none of them. The 
valley is heat and emptiness. Even the jackal that 
slinks across the trail in front of us, droops and 
drags his tail in visible exhaustion. His lolling, red 
tongue is a signal of distress. In a climate like this 
197 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

one expects nothing from man or beast. Life de- 
generates, shrivels, stifles; and in the glaring open 
spaces a sullen madness lurks invisible. 

We are coming to the ancient fording-place of the 
river, called Adamah, where an event once hap- 
pened which was of great consequence to the Is- 
raelites and which has often been misunderstood. 
They were encamped on the east side, opposite 
Jericho, nearly thirty miles below this point, waiting 
for their first opportunity to cross the Jordan. 
Then, says the record, "the waters which came 
down from above stopped, and were piled up in a 
heap, a great way off, at Adam, . . . and the people 
passed over right against Jericho." (Joshua iii: 
14-16.) 

Look at these great clay-banks overhanging the 
river, and you will understand what it was that 
opened a dry path for Israel into Canaan. One of 
these huge masses of clay was undermined, and 
slipped, and fell across the river, heaping up the 
waters behind a temporary natural dam, and cutting 
off the supply of the lower stream. It may have 
taken three or four days for the river to carve its 

198 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

way through or around that obstruction, and mean- 
time any one could march across to Jericho without 
wetting his feet. I have seen precisely the same 
thing happen on a salmon river in Canada quite as 
large as the Jordan. 

The river is more open at this place, and there is 
a curious six-cornered ferry-boat, pulled to and fro 
with ropes by a half-dozen bare-legged Arabs. If it 
had been a New England river, the practical Western 
mind would have built a long boat with a flat board 
at each side, and rigged a couple of running wheels 
on a single rope. Then the ferryman would have 
had nothing to do but let the stern of his craft swing 
down at an angle with the stream, and the swift cur- 
rent would have pushed him from one side to the 
other at his will. But these Orientals have been 
running their ferry in their own way, no doubt, for 
many centuries; and who are we to break in upon 
their laborious indolence with new ideas ? It is 
enough that they bring us over safely, with our cattle 
and our stuff, in several bands, with much tugging 
at the ropes and shouting and singing. 

We look in vain on the shore of the Jordan for a 
199 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

pleasant place to eat our luncheon. The big trees 
stand with their feet in the river, and the smaller 
shrubs are scraggly and spiny. At last we find a 
little patch of shade on a steep bank above the yel- 
low stream, and here we make ourselves as com- 
fortable as we can, with the thermometer at 110°, 
and the hungry gnats and mosquitoes swarming 
around us. 

Early in the afternoon we desperately resolve to 
brave the sun, and ride up from the river-bed into 
the open plain on the west. Here we catch our first 
clear view of Mount Hermon, with its mantle of 
glistening snow, hanging like a cloud on the northern 
horizon, ninety miles away, beyond the Lake of 
Galilee and the Waters of Merom; a vision of dis- 
tance and coolness and grandeur. 

The fields, watered by the full streams descending 
from the Wadi Farah, are green with wheat and 
barley. Along our path are balsam-trees and thorny 
jujubes, from whose branches we pluck the sweet, 
insipid fruit as we ride beneath them. Herds of cattle 
are pasturing on the plain, and long rows of black 
Bedouin tents are stretched at the foot of the 
200 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

mountains. We cross a dozen murmuring water- 
courses embowered in the dark, glistening foliage of 
the oleanders glowing with great soft flames of rosy 
bloom. 

At the Serai on the hill which watches over this 
Jiftlik, or domain of the Sultan, there are some Turk- 
ish soldiers saddling their horses for an expedition ; 
perhaps to collect taxes or to chase robbers. The 
peasants are returning, by the paths among the corn- 
fields, to their huts. The lines of camp-fires begin to 
gleam from the transient Bedouin villages. Our 
white tents are pitched in a flowery meadow, beside a 
low- voiced stream, and as we fall asleep the night air 
is trembling with the shrill, innumerable hrek-ek-ek- 
codx-coax of the frog chorus. 



201 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 



II 

MOUNT EPHRAIM AND JACOB'S WELL 

Samarl\ is a mountain land, but its characteristic 
features, as distinguished from Judea, are the easi- 
ness of approach through open gateways among the 
hills, and the fertility of the broad vales and level 
plains which lie between them. The Kingdom of 
Israel, in its brief season of prosperity, was richer, 
more luxurious, and weaker than the Kingdom of 
Judah. The poet Isaiah touched the keynote of the 
northern kingdom when he sang of "the crown of 
pride of the drunkards of Ephraim," and "the fad- 
ing flower of his glorious beauty which is on the 
head of the fat valley." (Isaiah xxviii: 1-6.) 

We turn aside from the open but roundabout way 
of the well-tilled Wadi Farah and take a shorter, 
steeper path toward Shechem, through a deep, nar- 
row mountain gorge. The day is hot and hazy, for 
the Sherkryeh is blowing from the desert across the 
Jordan Valley: the breath of Jehovah's displeasure 
with His people, "a dry wind of the high places of 
202 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, 
neither to fan nor to cleanse." 

At times the walls of rock come so close together 
that we have to wind through a passage not more 
than ten feet wide. The air is parched as in an oven. 
Our horses scramble wearily up the stony gallery and 
the rough stairways. One of our company faints 
under the fervent heat, and falls from his horse. 
But fortunately no bones are broken; a half -hour's 
rest in the shadow of a great rock revives him and 
we ride on. . 

The wonderful flowers are blooming wherever 
they can find a foothold among the stones. Now 
and then we cross the mouth of some little lonely 
side-valley, full of mignonette and cyclamens and 
tall spires of pink hollyhock. Under the huge, dark 
sides of Eagle's Crag — bare and rugged as Ben Nevis 
— we pass into the fruitful plain of Makhna, where 
the silken grainfields rustle far and wide, and the 
rich olive-orchards on the hill-slopes offer us a shel- 
ter for our midday meal and siesta. Mount Ebal and 
Mount Gerizim now rise before us in their naked 
bulk; and, as we mount toward the valley which lies 
203 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

between them, we stay for a while to rest at Jacob's 
Well. 

There is a mystery about this ancient cistern on 
the side of the mountain. Why was it dug here, a 
hundred feet deep, although there are springs and 
streams of living water flowing down the valley, 
close at hand? Whence came the tradition of the 
Samaritans that Jacob gave them this well, although 
the Old Testament says nothing about it? Why 
did the Samaritan woman, in Jesus' time, come 
hither to draw water when there was a brook, not 
fifty yards away, which she must cross to get to the 
well? 

Who can tell ? Certainly there must have been 
some use and reason for such a well, else the 
men of long ago would never have toiled to make 
it. Perhaps the people of Sychar had some super- 
stition about its water which made them prefer it. 
Or perhaps the stream was owned and used for other 
purposes, while the water of the well was free. 

It makes no difference whether a solution of the 
problem is ever found. Its very existence adds to 
the touch of truth in the narrative of St. John's Gos- 
204 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

pel. Certainly this well was here in Jesus' day, close 
beside the road which He would be most likely to 
take in going from Jerusalem to Galilee. Here He 
sat, alone and weary, while the disciples went on to 
the village to buy food. And here, while He waited 
and thirsted, He spoke to an unknown, unfriendly, 
unhappy woman the words which have been a spring 
of living water to the weary and fevered heart of the 
world : " God is a spirit, and they that worship Him 
must worship Him in spirit and in truth." 

Ill 

NABLUS AND SEBASTE 

About a mile from Jacob's Well, the city of 
Nablus lies in the hollow between Mount Gerizim 
on the south and Mount Ebal on the north. The 
side of Gerizim is precipitous and jagged; Ebal rises 
more smoothly, but very steeply, and is covered with 
plantations of thornless cactus, (Opuntia cochinilli- 
fera), cultivated for the sake of the cochineal in- 
sects which live upon the plant and from which a 
red dye is made. 

205 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

The valley is well watered, and is about a 
quarter of a mile wide. A little east of the city there 
are two natural bays or amphitheatres opposite to 
each other in the mountains. Here the tribes of 
Israel may have been gathered while the priests 
chanted the curses of the law from Ebal and the 
blessings from Gerizim. (Joshua viii: 30-35.) The 
cliffs were sounding-boards and sent the loud voices 
of blessing and cursing out over the multitude so that 
all could hear. 

It seems as if it were mainly the echo of the cursing 
of Ebal that greets us as we ride around the fierce lit- 
tle Mohammedan city of Nablus on Friday afternoon, 
passing through the open and dilapidated cemeteries 
where the veiled women are walking and gossiping 
away their holiday. The looks of the inhabitants 
are surly and hostile. The children shout mocking 
ditties at us, reviling the "Nazarenes." We will not 
ask our dragoman to translate the words that we 
catch now and then ; it is easy to guess that they are 
not "fit to print." 

Our camp is close beside a cemetery, near the 
eastern gate of the town. The spectators who watch 
206 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

us from a distance while we dine are numerous ; and 
no doubt they are passing unfavourable criticisms 
on our table manners, and on the Frankish custom 
of permitting one unveiled lady to travel with three 
husbands. The population of Nablus is about 
twenty-five thousand. It has a Turkish governor, 
a garrison, several soap factories, and a million dogs 
which howl all night. 

At half -past six the next morning we set out on foot 
to climb Mount Ebal, which is three thousand feet 
high. The view from the rocky summit sweeps over 
all Palestine, from snowy Hermon to the mountains 
round about Jerusalem, from Carmel to Nebo, from 
the sapphire expanse of the Mediterranean to the 
violet valley of the Jordan and the garnet wall of 
Moab and Gilead beyond. 

For us the view is veiled in mystery by the haze 
of the south wind. The ranges and peaks far 
away fade into cloudlike shadows. The depths 
below us seem to sink unfathomably. Nablus is 
buried in the gulf. On the summit of Gerizim, 
a Mohammedan well, shining like a flake of mica, 
marks the plateau where the Samaritan Temple 
207 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

stood. Hilltop towns, Asiret, Talluza, Yasid, emerge 
like islands from the misty sea. In that great 
shadowy hollow to the west lie the ruins of the 
city of Samaria, which Csesar Augustus renamed 
Sebaste, in honour of his wife Augusta. If she could 
see the village of Sebastiyeh now she would not be 
proud of her namesake town. It is there that we are 
going to make our midday camp. 

King Omri acted as a wise man when he moved 
the capital of Israel from Shechem, an indefensible 
site, commanded by overhanging mountains and 
approached by two easy vales, to Shomron, the 
*' watch-hill" which stands in the centre of the broad 
Vale of Barley. 

As we ride across the smiling corn-fields toward 
the isolated eminence, we see its strength as well 
as its beauty. It rises steeply from the valley to a 
height of more than three hundred feet. The en- 
circling mountains are too far away to dominate 
it under the ancient conditions of warfare without 
cannons, and a good wall must have made it, as its 
name implied, an impregnable "stronghold," watch- 
ing over a region of immense fertility. 

208 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

What pomps and splendours, what revels and 
massacres, what joys of victory and horrors of de- 
feat, that round hill rising from the Vale of Barley 
has seen. Now there is nothing left of its crown of 
pride, but the broken pillars of the marble colonnade 
a mile long with which Herod the Great girdled the 
hill, and a few indistinguishable ruins of the temple 
which he built in honour of the divine Augustus and 
of the hippodrome which he erected for the people. 
We climb the terraces and ride through the olive- 
groves and ploughed fields where the street of col- 
umns once ran. A few of them are standing up- 
right; others leaning or fallen, half sunken in the 
ground; fragments of others built into the stone 
walls which divide the fields. There are many hewn 
and carven stones imbedded in the miserable little 
modern village which crouches on the north end of 
the hill, and the mosque into which the Crusaders' 
Church of Saint John has been transformed is said 
to contain the tombs of Elisha, Obadiah and John 
the Baptist. This rumour does not concern us deeply 
and we will leave its truth uninvestigated. 

Let us tie our horses among Herod's pillars, and 
209 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

spread the rugs for our noontide rest by the ruined 
south gate of the city. At our feet Hes the wide, 
level, green valley where the mighty host of Ben- 
hadad, King of Damascus, once besieged the starving 
city and waited for its surrender. (II Kings vii.) 
There in the twilight of long ago a panic terror 
whispered through the camp, and the Syrians rose 
and fled, leaving their tents and their gear behind 
them. And there four nameless lepers of Israel, 
wandering in their despair, found the vast encamp- 
ment deserted, and entered in, and ate and drank, 
and picked up gold and silver, until their conscience 
smote them. Then they climbed up to this gate 
with the good news that the enemy had vanished, 
and the city was saved. 



no 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 



IV 

DOTHAN AND THE GOODNESS OF THE 
SAMARITAN 

Over the steep mountains that fence Samaria to 
the north, down through terraced vales abloom with 
hawthorns and blood-red poppies, across hill-circled 
plains where the long, silvery wind-waves roll over 
the sea of grain from shore to shore, past little gray- 
towns sleeping on the sunny heights, by paths that 
lead us near flowing springs where the village girls 
fill their pitchers, and down stony slopes where 
the goatherds in bright-coloured raiment tend their 
flocks, and over broad, moist fields where the path 
has been obliterated by the plough, and around the 
edge of marshes where the storks rise heavily on long 
flapping wings, we come galloping at sunset to our 
camp beside the little green hill of Dothan. 

Behind it are the mountains, swelling and softly 
rounded like breasts. It was among them that the 
servant of Elisha saw the vision of horses and chariots 
of fire protecting his master. (II Kings vi: 14-19.) 
211 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

North and east of Dothan the plain extends smooth 
and gently sloping, full of young harvest. There the 
chariot of Naaman rolled when he came down from 
Damascus to be healed by the prophet of Israel. 
(II Kings V : 9.) 

On top of the hill is a spreading terebinth-tree, 
with some traces of excavation and rude ruins be- 
neath it. There Joseph's envious brethren cast him 
into one of the dry pits, from which they drew him 
up again to sell him to a caravan of merchants, 
winding across the plain on their way from Midian 
into Egypt. (Genesis xxxvii.) 

Truly, many and wonderful things came to pass 
of old around this little green hill. And now, at the 
foot of it, there is a well-v/atered garden, with figs, 
oranges, almonds, vines, and tall, trembling poplars, 
surrounded by a hedge of prickly pear. Outside of 
the hedge a big, round spring of crystal water is flow- 
ing steadily over the rim of its basin of stones. There 
the flocks and herds are gathered, morning and 
evening, to drink. There the children of the tiny 
hamlet on the hillside come to paddle their feet in 
the running stream. There a caravan of Greek pil- 
212 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

grims, on their way from Damascus to Jerusalem for 
Easter, halt in front of our camp, to refresh them- 
selves with a draught of the cool water. 

As we watch them from our tents there is a sudden 
commotion among them, a cry of pain, and then 
voices of dismay. George and two or three of our 
men run out to see what is the matter, and come 
hurrying back to get some cotton cloth and oil 
and wine. One of the pilgrims, an old woman of 
seventy, has fallen from her horse on the sharp stones 
beside the spring, breaking her wrist and cutting her 
head. 

I do not know whether the way in which they 
bound up that poor old stranger's wounds was sur- 
gically wise, but I know that it was humanly kind 
and tender. I do not know which of our various 
churches were represented among her helpers, but 
there must have been at least three, and the mule- 
teer from Bagdad who "had no religion but sang 
beautiful Persian songs" was also there, and ready 
to help with the others. And so the parable which 
lighted our dusty way going down to Jericho is in- 
terpreted in our pleasant camp at Dothan. 

213 



THE MOUNTAINS OF SAMARIA 

The paths of the Creeds are many and winding; 
they cross and diverge; but on all of them the Good 
Samaritan is welcome, and I think he travels to a 
happy place. 



214 



A PSALM OF THE HELPERS 



The ways of the world are full of haste and turmoil: 
I will sing of the tribe of helpers who travel in peace. 

He that turneth from the road to rescue another, \ 
Turneth toward his goal: 

He shall arrive in due time by the foot-path of mercy , 
God will be his guide. 

He that taheth up the burden of the fainting, 
Lighteneth his own load: 

The Almighty will put his arms underneath him. 
He shall lean upon the Lord. 

He that speaketh comfortable words to mourners, 
Healeth his own heart: 

In his time of grief they will return to remembrance, 
God will use them for balm. 

He that careth for the sick and wounded, 
Watcheth not alone: 

There are three in the darkness together. 
And the third is the Lord. 

Blessed is the way of the helpers: 
The companions of the Christ. 

215 



X 

GALILEE AND THE LAKE 



I 



THE PLAIN OF ESDRAELON 

Going from Samaria into Galilee is like passing 
from the Old Testament into the New. 

There is indeed little difference in the outward 
landscape: the same bare lines of rolling mountains, 
green and gray near by, blue or purple far away; 
the same fertile valleys and emerald plains embos- 
omed among the hills; the same orchards of olive- 
trees, not quite so large, nor so many, but always 
softening and shading the outlook with their touches 
of silvery verdure. 

It is the spirit of the landscape that changes; 
the inward view; the atmosphere of memories 
and associations through which we travel. We 
have been riding with fierce warriors and proud 
kings and fiery prophets of Israel, passing the 
sites of royal splendour and fields of ancient havoc, 
retracing the warpaths of the Twelve Tribes. But 
when we enter Galilee the keynote of our thoughts 
219 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

is modulated into peace. Issachar and Zebulon 
and Asher and Naphtali have left no trace or mes- 
sage for us on the plains and hills where they 
once lived and fought. We journey with Jesus of 
Nazareth, the friend of publicans and sinners, the 
shepherd of the lost sheep, the human embodiment 
of the Divine Love. 

This transition in our journey is marked out- 
wardly by the crossing of the great Plain of Es- 
draelon, which we enter by the gateway of Jenin. 
There are a few palm-trees lending a little grace to 
the disconsolate village, and the Turkish captain of 
the military post, a grizzled veteran of Plevna, in- 
vites us into the guard-room to drink coffee with 
him, while we wait for a dilatory telegraph operator 
to send a message. Then we push out upon the 
green sea to a brown island : the village of Zer*in, the 
ancient Jezreel. 

The wretched hamlet of adobe huts, with mud 
beehives plastered against the walls, stands on the 
lowest bench of the foothills of Mount Gilboa, op- 
posite the equally wretched hamlet of Sulem in a 
corresponding position at the base of a mountain 
220 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

called Little Hermon. The widespread, opulent view 
is haunted with old stories of battle, murder and 
sudden death. 

Down to the east we see the line of brighter green 
creeping out from the flanks of Mount Gilboa, mark- 
ing the spring where Gideon sifted his band of war- 
riors for the night-attack on the camp of Midian. 
(Judges vii : 4-23.) Under the brow of the hill are 
the ancient wine-presses, cut in the rock, which be- 
longed to the vineyard of Naboth, whom Jezebel 
assassinated. (I Kings xxi: 1-16.) From some 
window of her favourite palace on this eminence, that 
hard, old, painted queen looked down the broad 
valley of Jezreel, and saw Jehu in his chariot driving 
furiously from Gilead to bring vengeance upon her. 
On those dark ridges to the south the brave Jona- 
than was slain by the Philistines and the desperate 
Saul fell upon his own sword. (I Samuel xxxi: 1-6.) 
Through that open valley, which slopes so gently 
down to the Jordan at Bethshan, the hordes of 
Midian and the hosts of Damascus marched against 
Israel. By the pass of Jentn, Holof ernes led his 
army in triumph until he met Judith of Bethulia and 
221 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

lost his head. Yonder in the corner to the northward, 
at the base of Mount Tabor, Deborah and Barak 
gathered the tribes against the Canaanites under 
Sisera. (Judges iv: 4-22.) Away to the westward, 
in the notch of Megiddo, Pharaoh-Necho's archers 
pierced King Josiah, and there was great mourning 
for him in Hadad-rimmon. (II Chronicles xxxv: 
24-25; Zechariah xii: 11.) Farther still, where the 
mountain spurs of Galilee approach the long ridge 
of Carmel, Elijah put the priests of Baal to death 
by the Brook Kishon. (I Kings xYiii: 20-40.) 

All over that great prairie, which makes a broad 
break between the highlands of Galilee and the 
highlands of Samaria and Judea, and opens an easy 
pathway rising no more than three hundred feet 
between the Jordan and the Mediterranean — all 
over that fertile, blooming area and around the 
edges of it are sown the legends 

"Of old, unhappy, far-off things 
And battles long ago." 

But on this bright April day when we enter the plain 
of Armageddon, everything is tranquil and joyous. 
222 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

The fields are full of rustling wheat, and bearded 
barley, and blue-green stalks of beans, and feathery 
Jcirsennehf camel-provender. The peasants in their 
gay-coloured clothing are ploughing the rich, red- 
brown soil for the late crop of dour a. The 
newly built railway from Haifa to Damascus lies 
like a yellow string across the prairie from west to 
east; and from north to south a single file of two 
hundred camels, with merchandise for Egypt, undu- 
late along the ancient road of the caravans, turning 
their ungainly heads to look at the puflfing engine 
which creeps toward them from the distance. 

Larks singing in the air, storks parading beside the 
watercourses, falcons poising overhead, poppies and 
pink gladioluses and blue corn-cockles blooming 
through the grain, — a little village on a swell of rising 
ground, built for their farm hands by the rich Greeks 
who have bought the land and brought it under cul- 
tivation, — an air so pure and soft that it is Hke a 
caress, — all seems to speak a language of peace and 
promise, as if one of the old prophets were telling of 
the day when Jehovah shall have compassion on His 
people Israel and restore them. "They that dwell 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

under His shadow shall return; they shall revive as 
the grain, and blossom as the vine : the scent thereof 
shall be as the wine of Lebanon." 

It is, indeed, not impossible that wise methods of 
colonization, better agriculture and gardening, the 
development of fruit-orchards and vineyards, and 
above all, more rational government and equitable 
taxation may one day give back to Palestine some- 
thing of her old prosperity and population. If the 
Jews really want it no doubt they can have it. 
Their rich men have the money and the influence; 
and there are enough of their poorer folk scattered 
through Europe to make any land blossom like the 
rose, if they have the will and the patience for the 
slow toil of the husbandman and the vine-dresser 
and the shepherd and the herdsman. 

But the proud kingdom of David and Solomon will 
never be restored; not even the tributary kingdom of 
Herod. For the land will never again stand at the 
crossroads, the four-corners of the civilized world. 
The Suez Canal to the south, and the railways through 
the Lebanon and Asia Minor to the north, have settled 
that. They have left Palestine in a corner, off the 
224 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

main-travelled roads. The best that she can hope 
for is a restoration to quiet fruitfulness, to placid 
and humble industry, to olive-crowned and vine- 
girdled felicity, never again to power. 

And if that lowly re-coronation comes to her, it 
will not be on the stony heights around Jerusalem : 
it will be in the Plain of Sharon, in the outgoings of 
Mount Ephraim, in the green pastures of Gilead, in 
the lovely region of "Galilee of the Gentiles." It 
will not be by the sword of Gideon nor by the 
sceptre of Solomon, but by the sign of peace on 
earth and good- will among men. 

With thoughts like these we make our way across 
the verdurous inland sea of Esdraelon, out of the 
Old Testament into the New. Landmarks of the 
country of the Gospel begin to appear: the wooded 
dome of Mount Tabor, the little village of Nain 
where Jesus restored the widow's only son. (Luke 
vii: 11-16.) But these lie far to our right. The 
beacon which guides us is a glimpse of white walls 
and red roofs, high on a shoulder of the Galilean 
hills : the outlpng houses of Nazareth, where the boy 
Jesus dwelt with His parents after their return from 
225 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

the fiight into Egypt, and was obedient to them, and 
grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God 
and men. 

II 

THEIR OWN CITY NAZARETH 

Our camp in Nazareth is on a terrace among the 
oHve-trees, on the eastern side of a small valley, 
facing the Mohammedan quarter of the toT\Ti. 

This is distinctly the most attractive little city that 
we have seen in Palestine. The houses are spread out 
over a wider area than is usual in the East, covering 
three sides of a gentle depression high on the side of 
the Jebel es-Sikh, and creeping up the hill-slopes as if 
to seek a larger view and a purer air. Some of them 
have gardens, fair white walls, red-tiled roofs, bal- 
conies of stone or wought iron. Even in the more 
closely built portion of the town the streets seem 
cleaner, the bazaars lighter and less malodorous, the 
interior courtyards into which we glance in passing 
more neat and homelike. Many of the doorways 
and living-rooms of the humbler houses are freshly 
226 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

whitewashed with a Hght-blue tint which gives them 
an immaculate air of cleanhness. 

The Nazarene women are generally good looking, 
and free and dignified in their bearing. The children, 
fairer in complexion than is common in Syria, are 
almost all charming with the beauty of youth, and 
among them are some very lovely faces of boys and 
girls. I do not mean to say that Nazareth appears to 
us an earthly paradise; only that it shines by contrast 
with places like Hebron and Jericho and Nablus, 
even with Bethlehem, and that we find here far less 
of human squalor and misery to sadden us with 
thoughts of 

"What man has made of man." 

The population of the town is about eleven or 
twelve thousand, a quarter of them Mussulmans, 
and the rest Christians of various sects, including 
two or three hundred Protestants. The people used 
to have rather a bad reputation for turbulence; but we 
see no signs of it, either in the appearance of the city 
or in the demeanour of the inhabitants. The children 
and the townsfolk whom we meet in the streets, and 
227 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

of whom we ask our way now and then, are civil and 
friendly. The man who comes to the camp to sell 
us antique coins and lovely vases of iridescent 
glass dug from the tombs of Tyre and Sidon, may be 
an inveterate humbug, but his manners are good 
and his prices are low. The soft- voiced women and 
lustrous-eyed girls who hang about the Lady's tent, 
persuading her to buy their small embroideries and 
lace-work and trinkets, are gentle and ingratiating, 
though persistent. 

I am honestly of the opinion that Christian mission- 
schools and hospitals have done a great deal for 
Nazareth. We go this morning to visit the schools 
of the English Church Missionary Society, where 
Miss Newton is conducting an admirable and most 
successful work for the girls of Nazareth. She 
is away on a visit to some of her outlying stations; 
but the dark-eyed, happy-looking Syrian teacher 
shows us all the classes. There are five of them, and 
every room is full and bright and orderly. 

On the Christian side, the older girls sing a hymn 
for us, in their high voices and quaint English accent, 
about Jesus stilling the storm on Galilee, and the in- 
228 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

termediate girls and the tiny co-educated boys and 
girls in the kindergarten go through various pretty 
performances. Then the teacher leads us across the 
street to the two Moslem classes, and we cannot tell 
the difference between them and the Christian 
children, except that now the singing of "Jesus 
loves me" and the recitation of "The Lord is my 
Shepherd" are in Arabic. There is one blind girl who 
recites most perfectly and eagerly. Another girl of 
about ten years carries her baby-brother in her 
arms. Two little laggards, (they were among the 
group at our camp early in the morning), arrive 
late, weeping out their excuses to the teacher. She 
hears them with a kind, humorous look on her 
face, gives them a soft rebuke and a task, and sends 
them to their seats, their tears suddenly transformed 
to smiles. 

From the schools we go to the hospital of the 
British Medical Mission, a little higher up the hill. 
We find young Doctor Scrimgeour, who has lately 
come out from Edinburgh University, and his white- 
uniformed, cheerful, busy nurses, tasked to the 
limit of their strength by the pressure of their work, 
229 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

but cordial and simple in their welcome. As I walk 
with the doctor on his rounds I see every ward full, 
and all kinds of calamity and suffering waiting for 
the relief and help of his kind, skiKul knife. Here 
are hernia, and tuberculous glands, and cataract, 
and stone, and bone tuberculosis, and a score of 
other miseries; and there, on the table, with pale, 
dark face and mysterious eyes, lies a man w^hose knee 
has been shattered by a ball from a Martini rifle in 
an affray with robbers. 

"Was he one of the robbers," I ask, "or one of 
the robbed?" 

"I really don't know," says the doctor, "but in 
a few minutes I am going to do my best for him." 

Is not this Christ's work that is still doing in 
Christ's town, this teaching of the children, this 
helping of the sick and wounded, for His sake, and 
in His name ? Yet there are silly folk who say they 
do not believe in missions. 

There are a few so-called sacred places and 
shrines in Nazareth — ^the supposed scene of the 
Annunciation; the traditional Workshop of Joseph; 
the alleged Mensa Christi, a flat stone which He is 
230 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

said to have used as a table when He ate with His 
disciples; and so on. But all these uncertain relics 
and memorials, as usual, are inclosed in chapels, belit 
with lamps, and encircled with ceremonial. The 
very spring at which the Virgin Mary must have 
often filled her pitcher, (for it is the only flowing 
fountain in the town), now rises beneath the Greek 
Church of Saint Gabriel, and is conducted past the 
altar in a channel of stone where the pilgrims bathe 
their eyes and faces. To us, who are seeking our 
Holy Land out-of-doors, these shut-in shrines and 
altared memorials are less significant than what we 
find in the open, among the streets and on the sur- 
rounding hillsides. 

The Virgin's Fountain, issuing from the church, 
flows into a big, stone basin under a round arch. 
Here, as often as we pass, we see the maidens and 
the mothers of Nazareth, with great earthern vessels 
poised upon their shapely heads, coming with merry 
talk and laughter, to draw water. Even so the 
mother of Jesus must have come to this fountain 
many a time, perhaps with her wondrous boy run- 
ning beside her, clasping her hand or a fold of her 
231 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

bright-coloured garment. Perhaps, when the child 
was little she carried Him on her shoulder, as the 
women carry their children to-day. 

Passing through a street, we look into the interior 
of a carpenter-shop, with its simple tools, its little pile 
of new lumber, its floor littered with chips and shav- 
ings, and its air full of the pleasant smell of freshly 
cut wood. There are a few articles of furniture 
which the carpenter has made: a couple of chairs, 
a table, a stool : and he himself, with his leg stretched 
out and his piece of wood held firmly by his naked 
toes, is working busily at a tiny bed which needs 
only a pair of rockers to become a cradle. Outside 
the door of the shop a boy of ten or twelve is cutting 
some boards and slats, and putting them neatly to- 
gether. We ask him what he is making. "A box," 
he answers, "a box for some doves " — and then bends 
his head over his absorbing task. Even so Jesus 
must have worked at the shop of Joseph, the car- 
penter, and learned His handicraft. 

Let us walk up, at eventide, to the top of the hill 
behind the town. Here is one of the loveliest views 
in all Palestine. The sun is setting and the clear- 
232 




L'hc VirLi;in's l^'ouiUcUn, Nazarcvli. 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

obscure of twilight already rests over the streets and 
houses, the minarets and spires, the slender cypresses 
and round olive-trees and grotesque hedges of cactus. 
But on the heights the warm radiance from the west 
pours its full flood, lighting up all the flowerets of 
delicate pink flax and golden chrysanthemum and 
blue campanula with which the grass is broidered. 
Far and wide that roseate illumination spreads itself ; 
changing the snowy mantle of distant Hermon, the 
great Sheikh of Mountains, from ermine to flamingo 
feathers; making the high hills of Naphtali and the 
excellency of Carmel glow as if with soft, transfigur- 
ing, inward fire; touching the little town of Saffu- 
riyeh below us, where they say that the Virgin Mary 
was born, and the city of Safed, thirty miles away 
on the lofty shoulder of Jebel Jermak; suffusing the 
haze that fills the Valley of the Jordan, and the long 
bulwarks of the Other-Side, with hues of mauve and 
purple; and bathing the wide expanse of the western 
sea with indescribable splendours, over which the 
flaming sun poises for a moment beneath the edge 
of a low-hung cloud. 

On this hilltop, I doubt not, the boy Jesus often 
233 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

filled His hands with flowers. Here He could watch 
the creeping caravans of Arabian merchants, and 
the glittering legions of Roman soldiers, and the 
slow files of Jewish pilgrims, coming up from the 
Valley of Jezreel and stretching out across the Plain 
of Esdraelon. Hither, at the evening hour. He came 
as a youth to find the blessing of wide and tranquil 
thought. Here, when the burden of manhood pressed 
upon Him, He rested after the day's work, free from 
that sadness which often touches us in the vision 
of earth's transient beauty, because He saw far 
beyond the horizon into the spirit-world, where there 
is no night, nor weariness, nor sin, nor death. 

For nearly thirty years He must have lived within 
sight of this hilltop. And then, one day, He came 
back from a journey to the Jordan and Jerusalem, 
and entered into the little synagogue at the foot of 
this hill, and began to preach to His townsfolk His 
glad tidings of spiritual liberty and brotherhood and 
eternal life. 

But they were filled with scorn and wrath. His 
words rebuked them, stung them, inflamed them 
with hatred. They laid violent hands on Him, and 
234 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

led Him out to the brow of the hill, — perhaps it was 
yonder on that steep, rocky peak to the south of the 
town, looking back toward the country of the Old 
Testament, — to cast Him down headlong. 

Yet I think there must have been a few friends 
and lovers of His in that disdainful and ignorant 
crowd; for He passed through the midst of them 
unharmed, and went His way to the home of Peter 
and Andrew and John and Philip, beside the Sea of 
Galilee, never to come back to Nazareth. 

Ill 

A WEDDING IN CANA OF GALILEE 

We thought to save a little time on our journey, 
and perhaps to spare ourselves a little jolting on the 
hard high-road, by sending the saddle-horses ahead 
with the caravan, and taking a carriage for the six- 
teen-mile drive to Tiberias. When we came to the 
old sarcophagus which serves as a drinking trough 
at the spring outside the village of Cana, a strange 
thing befell us. 

We had halted for a moment to refresh the horses. 
235 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

Suddenly there was a sound of furious galloping on 
the road behind us. A score of cavaliers in Bedouin 
dress, with guns and swords, came after us in hot 
haste. The leaders dashed across the open space 
beside the spring, wheeled their foaming horses and 
dashed back again. 

"Is this our affair with robbers, at last ? " we asked 
George. 

He laughed a little. "No," said he, "this is the 
beginning of a wedding in Kafr Kenna. The bride- 
groom and his friends come over from some other 
\dllage where they live, to show off a bit of fantasia 
to the bride and her friends. They carry her back 
with them after the marriage. We wait a while and 
see how they ride." 

The horses were gayly caparisoned with ribbons 
and tassels and embroidered saddle-cloths. The 
riders were handsome, swarthy fellows with haughty 
faces. Their eyes glanced sideways at us to see 
whether we were admiring them, as they shouted their 
challenges to one another and raced wildly up and 
down the rock-strewn course, v/ith their robes flpng 
and their horses' sides bloody with, spurring. One 
236 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

of the men was a huge coal-black Nubian who bran- 
dished a naked sword as he rode. Others whirled 
their long muskets in the air and yelled furiously. 
The riding was cruel, reckless, superb; loose reins 
and loose stirrups on the headlong gallop; then the 
sharp curb brought the horse up suddenly, the rein 
on his neck turned him as if on a pivot, and the 
pressure of the heel sent him flying back over the 
course. 

Presently there was a sound of singing and clap- 
ping hands behind the high cactus-hedges to our 
left, and from a little lane the bridal procession 
walked up to take the high-road to the village. There 
were a dozen men in front, firing guns and shouting, 
then came the women, with light veils of gauze over 
their faces, singing shrilly, and in the midst of them, 
in gay attire, but half-concealed with long, dark 
mantles, the bride and " the virgins, her companions, 
in raiment of needlework." 

As they saw the photographic camera pointed at 
them they laughed, and crowded closer together, 
and drew the ends of their dark mantles over their 
heads. So they passed up the road, their shrill song 
237 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

broken a little by their laughter: and the company 
of horsemen, the bridegroom and his friends, wheeled 
into line, two by two, and trotted after them into 
the village. 

This was all that we saw of the wedding at Kafr 
Kenna — just a vivid, mysterious flash of human fig- 
ures, drawn together by the primal impulse and 
longing of our common nature, garbed and ordered 
by the social customs which make different lands 
and ages seem strange to each other, and moving 
across the narrow stage of Time into the dimness of 
that Arab village, where Jesus and His mother and 
His disciples were guests at a wedding long ago. 

IV 

TIBERIAS 

It is one of the ironies of fate that the lake which 
saw the greater part of the ministry of Jesus, should 
take its modern name from a city built by Herod 
Antipas, and called after one of the most infamous 
of the Roman Emperors, — "the Sea of Tiberias." 

Our road to this city of decadence leads gradually 
^38 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

downward, through a broad, sinking moorland, 
covered with weeds and wild flowers — rich, monot- 
onous, desolate. The broidery of pink flax and yel- 
low chrysanthemums and white marguerites still 
follows us; but now the wider stretches of thistles 
and burdocks and daturas and cockleburs and 
water-plantains seem to be more important. The 
landscape saddens around us, under the deepening 
haze of the desert- wind, the sombre Sherkiyeh. There 
are no golden sunbeams, no cool cloud-shadows, 
only a gray and melancholy illumination growing 
ever fainter and more nebulous as the day declines, 
and the outlines of the hills fade away from the dim, 
silent, forsaken plain through which we move. 

We are crossing the battlefield where the soldiers 
of Napoleon, under the brave Junot, fought desper- 
ately against the overwhelming forces of the Turks. 
Yonder, away to the left, in the mysterious haze, the 
double "Horns of Hattin" rise like a shadowy ex- 
halation. 

That is said to be the mountain where Jesus 
gathered the multitude around Him and spoke 
His new beatitudes on the meek, the merciful, the 

239 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

peacemakers, the pure in heart. It is certainly the 
place where the hosts of the Crusaders met the army 
of Saladin, in the fierce heat of a July day, seven 
hundred years ago, and while the burning grass and 
weeds and brush flamed around them, were cut to 
pieces and trampled and utterly consumed. There 
the new Kingdom of Jerusalem, — the last that was 
won with the sword, — went down in ruin around the 
relics of "the true cross," which its soldiers carried 
as their talisman; and Guy de Lusignan, their 
King, was captured. The noble prisoners were in- 
vited by Saladin to his tent, and he offered them 
sherbets, cooled with snow from Hermon, to slake 
their feverish thirst. When they were refreshed, the 
conqueror ordered them to be led out and put to the 
sword, — ^just yonder at the foot of the Mount of 
Beatitudes. 

From terrace to terrace of the falling moor we roll 
along the winding road through the brumous twilight, 
until we come within sight of the black, ruined 
walls, the gloomy towers, the huddled houses of the 
worn-out city of Tiberias. She is like an ancient 
beggar sitting on a rocky cape beside the lake and 
240 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

bathing her feet in the invisible water. The gathering 
dusk lends a sullen and forlorn aspect to the place. 
Behind us rise the shattered volcanic crags and cliffs 
of basalt; before us glimmer pallid and ghostly 
touches of light from the hidden waves ; a few lamps 
twinkle here and there in the dormant town. 

This was the city which Herod Antipas built for 
the capital of his Province of Galilee. He laid its 
foundations in an ancient graveyard, and stretched 
its walls three miles along the lake, adorning it with 
a palace, a forum, a race-course, and a large syna- 
gogue. But to strict Jews the place was unclean, 
because it was defiled with Roman idols, and be- 
cause its builders had polluted themselves by dig- 
ging up the bones of the dead. Herod could get few 
Jews to live in his city, and it became a catch-all for 
the off-scourings of the land, people of all creeds and 
none, aliens, mongrels, soldiers of fortune, and citi- 
zens of the high-road. It was the strongest fortress 
and probably the richest town of Galilee in Christ's 
day, but so far as we know He never entered it. 

After the fall of Jerusalem, strangely enough, the 
Jews made it their favourite city, the seat of their 
241 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

Sanhedrim and the centre of rabbinical learning. 
Here the famous Rabbis Jehuda and Akiba and the 
philosopher Maimonides taught. Here the Mishna 
and the Gemara were written. And here, to-day, 
two-thirds of the five thousand inhabitants are Jews, 
many of them living on the charity of their kindred 
in Europe, and spending their time in the study of 
the Talmud while they wait for the Messiah who shall 
restore the kingdom to Israel. You may see their 
flat fur caps, dingy gabardines, long beards and 
melancholy faces on every street in the drowsy little 
city, dreaming (among fleas and fevers) of I know 
not what impossible glories to come. 

You may see, also, on the hill near the Serai, the 
splendid Mission Hospital of the United Free 
Church of Scotland, where for twenty-three years 
Doctor Torrance has been ministering to the body 
and soul of Tiberias in the name of Jesus. Do you 
find the building too large and fine, the lovely garden 
too beautiful with flowers, the homes of the doctors, 
and teachers, and helpers of the sick and wounded, 
too clean and healthful and orderly.^ Do you say 
"To what purpose is this waste Then I know 
242 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

not how to measure your ignorance. For you have 
failed to see that this is the embassy of the only King 
who still cares for the true welfare of this forsaken, 
bedraggled, broken-down Tiberias. 

On the evening of our arrival, however, all these 
things are hidden from us in the dusk. We drive 
past the ruined gate of the city, a mile along the 
southern road toward the famous Hot Baths. Here, 
on a little terrace above the lake, between the road 
and the black basalt cliffs, our camp is pitched, and 
through the darkness 

' We hear the water lapping on the crag. 
And the long ripple washing in the reeds.' 

In the freshness of the early morning the sunrise 
pours across the lake into our tents. There is a 
light, cool breeze blowing from the north, rippling 
the clear, green water, (of a hue like the stone called 
aqua marina), with a thousand flaws and wrinkles, 
which catch the flashing light and reflect the deep 
blue sky, and change beneath the shadow of floating 
clouds to innumerable colours of lapis lazuli, and 
violet, and purple, and peacock blue. 

243 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

The old comparison of the shape of the lake to a 
lute, or a harp, is not clear to us from the point at 
which we stand: for the northwestward sweep of 
the bay of Gennesaret, which reaches a breadth of 
nearly eight miles from the eastern shore, is hidden 
from us by a promontory, where the dark walls and 
white houses of Tiberias slope to the water. But 
we can see the full length of the lake, from the de- 
pression of the Jordan Valley at the southern end, to 
the shores of Bethsaida and Capernaum at the foot 
of the northern hills, beyond which the dazzling 
whiteness of Hermon is visible. 

Opposite rise the eastern heights of the Jaulan, 
with almost level top and steep flanks, furrowed by 
rocky ravines, descending precipitously to a strip of 
smooth, green shore. Behind us the mountains are 
more broken and varied in form, lifted into sharper 
peaks and sloped into broader valleys. The whole 
aspect of the scene is like a view in the English Lake 
country, say on Windermere or Ullswater; only there 
are no forests or thickets to shade and soften it. 
Every edge of the hills is like a silhouette against 
the sky; every curve of the shore clear and distinct. 
244 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

Of the nine rich cities which once surrounded the 
lake, none is left except this ragged old Tiberias. Of 
the hundreds of fishing boats and passenger vessels 
which once crossed its waters, all have vanished ex- 
cept haK a dozen little pleasure skiffs kept for the 
use of tourists. Of the armies and caravans which 
once travelled these shores, all have passed by into the 
eternal far-away, except the motley string of visitors 
to the Hot Springs, who were coming up to bathe 
in the medicinal waters in the days of Joshua when 
the place was called Hammath, and in the time of 
the Greeks when it was named Emmaus, and who 
are still trotting along the road in front of our camp 
toward the big, white dome and dirty bath-houses of 
Hummam. They come from all parts of Syria, from 
Damascus and the sea-coast, from Judea and the 
Hauran; Greeks and Arabs and Turks and Maron- 
ites and Jews; on foot, on donkey-back, and in lit- 
ters. Now, it is a cavalcade of Druses from the 
Lebanon, men, women and children, riding on tired 
horses. Now, it is a procession of Hebrews walking 
with a silken canopy over the sacred books of their 
law. 

245 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

In the morning we visit Tiberias, buy some bread 
and fish in the market, and go through the Mission 
Hospital, where one of the gentle nurses binds up a 
foolish little wound on my wrist. 

In the afternoon we sail on the southern part of the 
lake. The boatmen laugh at my fruitless fishing w^ith 
artificial flies, and catch a few small fish for us with 
their nets in the shallow, muddy places along the 
shore. The wind is strange and variable, now 
sweeping down in violent gusts that bend the long 
arm of the lateen sail, now dying away to a dead 
calm through which we row lazily home. 

I remember a small purple kingfisher poising in the 
air over a shoal, his head bent downward, his wings 
vibrating swiftly. He drops like a shot and comes up 
out of the water with a fish held crosswise in his bill. 
With measured wing-strokes he flits to the top of a 
rock to eat his supper, and a robber-gull flaps after 
him to take it away. But the industrious kingfisher 
is too quick to be robbed. He bolts his fish with a 
single gulp. We eat ours in more leisurely fashion, 
by the light of the candles in our peaceful tent. 



246 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 



V 

MEMORIES OF THE LAKE 

A HUNDRED little points of illumination flash into 
memory as I look back over the hours that we spent 
beside the Sea of Galilee. How should I write of 
them all without being tedious? How, indeed, 
should I hope to make them visible or significant in 
the bare words of description ? 

Never have I passed richer, fuller hours; but 
most of their wealth was in very little things: the 
personal look of a flower growing by the wayside; 
the intimate message of a bird's song falling through 
the sunny air; the expression of confidence and 
appeal on the face of a wounded man in the hospital, 
when the good physician stood beside his cot; the 
shadows of the mountains lengthening across the 
valleys at sunset; the laughter of a little child play- 
ing with a broken water pitcher; the bronzed pro- 
files and bold, free ways of our sunburned rowers; 
the sad eyes of an old Hebrew lifted from the book 
that he was reading; the ruffling breezes and sud- 
den squalls that changed the surface of the lake; the 
247 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

single palm-tree that waved over the mud hovels of 
Magdala; the millions of tiny shells that strewed 
the beach of Capernaum and Bethsaida; the fer- 
tile sweep of the Plain of Gennesaret rising from 
the lake; and the dark precipices of the "Robbers' 
Gorge" running back into the western mountains. 

The written record of these hours is worth little; 
but in experience and in memory they have a mystical 
meaning and beauty, because they belong to the 
country where Jesus walked with His fishermen- 
disciples, and took the little children in His arms, 
and healed the sick, and opened blind eyes to behold 
ineffable things. 

Every touch that brings that country nearer to 
us in our humanity and makes it more real, more 
simple, more vivid, is precious. For the one irrep- 
arable loss that could befall us in religion, — a loss 
that is often threatened by our abstract and theo- 
retical ways of thinking and speaking about Him, — 
would be to lose Jesus out of the lowly and familiar 
ways of our mortal life. He entered these lowly ways 
as the Son of Man in order to make us sure that 
we are the children of God. 

248 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

Therefore I am glad of every hour spent by the 
Lake of GaUlee. 

I remember, when we came across in our boat to 
Tell Hum, where the ancient city of Capernaum 
stood, the sun was shining with a fervent heat and 
the air of the lake, six hundred and eighty feet below 
the level of the sea, was soft and languid. The gray- 
bearded German monk who came to meet us at the 
landing and admitted us to the inclosure of his little 
monastery where he was conducting the excavation 
of the ruins, wore a cork helmet and spectacles. He 
had been heated, even above the ninety degrees 
Fahrenheit which the thermometer marked, by the 
rudeness of a couple of tourists who had just tried 
to steal a photograph of his work. He had foiled 
them by opening their camera and blotting the film 
with sunlight, and had then sent them away with 
fervent words. But as he walked with us among 
his roses and Pride of India trees, his spirit cooled 
vdthin him, and he showed himself a learned and 
accomplished man. 

He told us how L.e had been working there for two 
249 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

or three years, keeping records and drawings and 
photographs of everything that was found ; going back 
to the Franciscan convent at Jerusalem for his short 
vacation in the heat of mid-summer; putting his 
notes in order, reading and studying, making ready 
to write his book on Capernaum. He showed us the 
portable miniature railway which he had made; and 
the little iron cars to carry away the great piles of 
rubbish and earth; and the rich columns, carved lin- 
tels, marble steps and shell-niches of the splendid 
building which his workmen had uncovered. The 
outline was clear and perfect. We could see how the 
edifice of fine, white limestone had been erected upon 
an older foundation of basalt, and how an earthquake 
had twisted it and shaken down its pillars. It was 
undoubtedly a synagogue, perhaps the very same 
which the rich Roman centurion built for the Jews 
in Capernaum (Luke vii: 5), and where Jesus 
healed the man who had an unclean spirit. (Luke 
iv: 31-37.) Of all the splendours of that proud city 
of the lake, once spreading along a mile of the shore, 
nothing remained but these tumbled ruins in a lonely, 
fragrant garden, where the patient father was dig- 
250 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

ging with his Arab workmen and getting ready to 
write his book. 

"Weh divy Capernaum " I quoted. The padre 
nodded his head gravely. " Ja, ja," said he, '^es ist 

huchst'ablich erfullt 

I remember the cool bath in the lake, at a point 
between Bethsaida and Capernaum, where a tangle 
of briony and honeysuckle made a shelter around 
a shell-strewn beach, and the rosy oleanders bloomed 
beside an inflowing stream. I swam out a little way 
and floated, looking up into the deep sky, while the 
waves plashed gently and caressingly around my face. 

I remember the old Arab fisherman, who was 
camped with his family in a black tent on a meadow 
where several lively brooks came in (one of them 
large enough to turn a mill). I persuaded him by 
gestures to wade out into the shallow part of the lake 
and cast his bell-net for fish. He gathered the net 
in his hand, and whirled it around his head. The 
leaden weights around the bottom spread out in a 
wide circle and splashed into the water. He drew 
the net toward him by the cord, the ring of sinkers 
251 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

sweeping the bottom, and lifted it slowly, carefully — 
but no fish! 

Then I rigged up my pocket fly-rod with a gossa- 
mer leader and two tiny trout-flies, a Royal Coach- 
man and a Queen of the Water, and began to cast 
along the crystal pools and rapids of the larger 
stream. How merrily the fish rose there, and in the 
ripples where the brooks ran out into the lake. There 
were half a dozen different kinds of fish, but I did 
not know the name of any of them. There was one 
that looked like a black bass, and others like white 
perch and sunfish; and one kind was very much hke 
a grayling. But they were not really of the salmo 
family, I knew, for none of them had the soft fin in 
front of the tail. How surprised the old fisherman 
was when he saw the fish jumping at those tiny hooks 
with feathers; and how round the eyes of his chil- 
dren were as they looked on ; and how pleased they 
were with the bakhshish which they received, in- 
cluding a couple of baithooks for the eldest boy! 

I remember the place where we ate our lunch in 
a small grove of eucalyptus-trees, with sweet-smell- 
252 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

ing yellow acacias blossoming around us. It was 
near the site which some identify with the ancient 
Bethsaida, but others say that it was farther to the 
east, and others again say that Capernaum was 
really located here. The whole problem of these 
lake cities, where they stood, how they supported 
such large populations (not less than fifteen thou- 
sand people in each), is diflficult and may never be 
solved. But it did not trouble us deeply. We were 
content to be beside the same waters, among the 
same hills, that Jesus knew and loved. 

It was here, along this shore, that He found Simon 
and his brother Andrew casting their net, and James 
and his brother John mending theirs, and called 
them to come with Him. These fishermen, with 
their frank and free hearts unspoiled by the sophis- 
tries of the Pharisees, with their minds unhampered 
by social and political ambitions, followers of a vo- 
cation which kept them out of doors and reminded 
them daily of their dependence on the bounty of 
God, — these children of nature, and others like them, 
were the men whom He chose for His disciples, the 
listeners who had ears to hear His marvellous gospel. 
253 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

It was here, on these pale, green waves, that He 
sat in a Httle boat, near the shore, and spoke to the 
multitude who had gathered to hear Him. 

He spoke of the deep and tranquil confidence 
that man may learn from nature, from the birds 
and the flowers. 

He spoke of the infinite peace of the heart that 
knows the true meaning of love, which is giving and 
blessing, and the true secret of courage, which is 
loyalty to the truth. 

He spoke of the God whom we can trust as a 
child trusts its father, and of the Heaven which 
waits for all who do good to their fellowmen. 

He spoke of the wisdom whose fruit is not pride 
but humility, of the honour whose crown is not 
authority but service, of the purity which is not 
outward but inward, and of the joy which lasts for- 
ever. 

He spoke of forgiveness for the guilty, of com- 
passion for the weak, of hope for the desperate. 

He told these poor and lowly folk that their souls 
were unspeakably precious, and that He had come to 
save them and make them inheritors of an eternal 
254 



GALILEE AND THE LAKE 

kingdom. He told them that He had brought this 
message from God, their Father and His Father. 

He spoke with the simpHcity of one who knows, 
with the assurance of one who has seen, with the cer- 
tainty and clearness of one for whom doubt does not 
exist. 

He offered Himself, in His stainless purity, in His 
supreme love, as the proof and evidence of His gos- 
pel, the bread of Heaven, the water of life, the 
Saviour of sinners, the light of the world. "Come 
unto Me," He said, "and I will give you rest." 

This was the heavenly music that came into the 
world by the Lake of Galilee. And its voice has 
spread through the centuries, comforting the sor- 
rowful, restoring the penitent, cheering the despond- 
ent, and telling all who will believe it, that our 
human life is worth living, because it gives each one 
of us the opportunity to share in the Love which is 
sovereign and immortal. 



255 



A PSALM OF THE GOOD TEACHER 



The Lord is my teacher: 

I shall not lose the way to wisdom. 

He leadeth me in the lowly path of learning. 
He prepareth a lesson for me every day; 
He flndeth the clear fountains of instruction, 
Little hy little he showeth me the beauty of the truth. 

The world is a great book that he hath written. 

He turneth the leaves for me slowly; 

They are all inscribed with images and letters. 

His face poureth light on tJie pictures and the words. 

Then am I glad when I perceive his meaning. 
He taketh me by the hand to the hill-top of vision; 
In the valley also he walketh beside me, 
And in the dark places he whisper eth to my heart. 

Yea, though my lesson be hard it is not hopeless. 
For the Lord is very patient with his slow scholar; 
He will wait awhile for my weakness. 
He will help me to read the truth through tears. 
256 



Surely thou wilt enlighten me daily by joy and by 
sorrow: 

And lead me at last, O Lord, to the perfect knowledge 
of thee. 



257 



XI 

THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 



I 



THE HILL-COUNTRY OF NAPHTALI 

Naphtali was the northernmost of the tribes of 
Israel, a bold and free highland clan, inhabiting a 
country of rugged hills and steep mountainsides, 
with fertile vales and little plains between. 

"Naphtali is a hind let loose," said the old song of 
the Sons of Jacob (Genesis xlix: 21); and as we ride 
up from the Lake of Galilee on our way northward, 
we feel the meaning of the poet's words. A people 
dwelling among these rock-strewn heights, building 
their fortress-towns on sharp pinnacles, and climb- 
ing these steep paths to the open fields of tillage or of 
war, would be like w^ld deer in their spirit of liberty, 
and they would need to be as nimble and sure-footed. 

Our good little horses are shod with round plates 
of iron, and they clatter noisily among the loose 
stones and slip on the rocky ledges, as we strike over 
the hills from Capernaum, without a path, to join 
the main trail at Khan Yubb Yusuf . 

261 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

We are skirting fields of waving wheat and barley, 
but there are no houses to be seen. Far and wide 
the sea of verdure rolls around us, broken only by 
ridges of grayish rock and scarped cliffs of reddish 
basalt. We wade saddle-deep in herbage; broad- 
leaved fennel and trembling reeds; wild asparagus 
and artichokes ; a hundred kinds of flowering weeds ; 
acres of last year's thistles, standing blanched and 
ghostlike in the summer sunshine. 

The phantom city of Safed gleams white from 
its far-away hilltop, — the latest and perhaps the 
last of the famous seats of rabbinical learning. It is 
one of the sacred places of modern Judaism. No 
Hebrew pilgrim fails to visit it. Here, they say, the 
Messiah will one day reveal himself, and after estab- 
lishing His kingdom, will set out to conquer the world. 

But it is not to the city, shining like a flake of 
mica from the greenness of the distant mountain, 
that our looks and thoughts are turning. It is back- 
ward to the lucent sapphire of the Lake of Galilee, 
upon whose shores our hearts have seen the secret 
vision, heard the inward message of the Man of 
Nazareth. 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

Ridge after ridge reveals new outlooks toward 
its tranquil loveliness. Turn after turn, our wind- 
ing way leads us to what we think must be the 
parting view. Sleeping in still, forsaken beauty 
among the sheltering hills, and open to the cloudless 
sky which makes its water like a little heaven, it 
seems to silently return our farewell looks with 
pleading for remembrance. Now, after one more 
round among the inclosing ridges, another vista 
opens, the widest and the most serene of all. 

Farewell, dear Lake of Jesus! Our eyes may 
never rest on thee again; but surely they will not 
forget thee. For now, as often we come to some fair 
water in the Western mountains, or unfold the tent 
by some lone lakeside in the forests of the North, the 
lapping of thy waves will murmur through our 
thoughts; thy peaceful brightness will arise before 
us; we shall see the rose-flush of thy oleanders, and 
the waving of thy reeds; the sweet, faint smell of 
thy gold-flowered acacias will return to us from 
purple orchids and white lilies. Let the blessing 
that is thine go with us everywhere in God's great 
out-of-doors, and our hearts never lose the comrade- 
263 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

ship of Him who made thee holiest among all the 
waters of the world! 

The Khan of Joseph's Pit is a ruin ; a huge and 
broken building deserted by the caravans which 
used to throng this highway from Damascus to the 
cities of the lake, and to the ports of Acre and 
Joppa, and to the metropolis of Egypt. It is hard 
to realize that this wild moorland path by which we 
are traveUing was once a busy road, filled with cam- 
els, horses, chariots, foot-passengers, clanking com- 
panies of soldiers; that these crumbling, cavernous 
walls, overgrown with thorny capers and wild mar- 
joram and mandragora, were once crowded every 
night with a motley mob of travellers and merchants ; 
that this pool of muddy water, gloomily reflecting 
the ruins, was once surrounded by flocks and herds 
and beasts of burden; that only a few hours to the 
southward there was once a ring of splendid, thriv- 
ing, bustling towns around the shores of Galilee, 
out of w^hich and into which the multitudes were 
forever journepng. Now they are all gone from 
the road, and the vast wayside caravanserai is 
264 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

sleeping into decay — a dormitory for bats and ser- 
pents. 

What is it that makes the wreck of an inn more 
lonely and forbidding than any other ruin ? 

A few miles more of riding along the flanks of the 
mountains bring us to a place where we turn a 
corner suddenly, and come upon the full view of the 
upper basin of the Jordan; a vast oval green cup, 
with the httle Lake of Huleh lying in it like a blue 
jewel, and the giant bulk of Mount Hermon towering 
beyond it, crowned and cloaked with silver snows. 

Up the steep and slippery village street of Rosh 
Pinnah, a modern Jewish colony founded by the 
Rothschilds in 1882, we scramble wearily to our 
camping-ground for the night. Above us on a hill- 
top is the old Arab village of Jauneh, brown, pict- 
uresque, and filthy. Around us are the colonists' new 
houses, with their red-tiled roofs and white walls. 
Two straight streets running in parallel lines up the 
hillside are roughly paved with cobble-stones and 
lined with trees; mulberries, white-flowered acacias, 
eucalyptus, feathery pepper-trees, and rose-bushes. 
Water runs down through pipes from a copious 
265 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

spring on the mountain, and flows abundantly into 
every house, plashing into covered reservoirs and 
open stone basins for watering the cattle. Below us 
the long avenues of eucalyptus, the broad vineyards 
filled with low, bushy vines, the immense orchards of 
pale-green almond-trees, the smiling wheat-fields, 
slope to the lake and encircle its lower end. 

The children who come to visit our camp on the 
terrace wear shoes and stockings, carry school-books 
in their bags, and bring us offerings of little bunches 
of sweet-smelling garden roses and pendulous 
locust-blooms. We are a thousand years away from 
the Khan of Joseph's Pit; but we can still see the old 
mud village on the height against the sunset, and 
the camp-fires gleaming in front of the black Be- 
douin tents far below, along the edge of the marshes. 
We are perched between the old and the new, be- 
tween the nomad and the civilized man, and the 
unchanging white head of Hermon looks down upon 
us all. 

In the morning, on the way down, I stop at the 
door of a house and fall into talk with an intelligent, 
schoolmasterish sort of man, a Roumanian, who 
266 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

speaks a little weird German. Is the colony pros- 
pering? Yes, but not so fast that it makes them 
giddy. What are they raising ? Wheat and barley, 
a few vegetables, a great deal of almonds and grapes. 
Good harvests ? Some years good, some years bad ; 
the Arabs bad every year, terrible thieves; but the 
crops are plentiful most of the time. Are the colo- 
nists happy, contented.? A thin smile wrinkles 
around the man's lips as he answers with the state- 
ment of a world-wide truth, ''Ach, Herr, der Acker- 
bauer ist nie zufrieden.*' ("Ah, Sir, the farmer is 
never contented.") 

II 

THE WATERS OF MEROM 

All day we ride along the hills skirting the marshy 
plain of Huleh. Here the springs and parent 
streams of Jordan are gathered, behind the moun- 
tains of Naphtali and at the foot of Hermon, as in 
a great green basin about the level of the ocean, for 
the long, swift rush down the sunken trench which 
leads to the deep, sterile bitterness of the Dead Sea. 
267 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

Was there ever a river that began so fair and ended 
in such waste and desolation ? 

Here in this broad, level, well-watered valley, 
along the borders of these vast beds of papyrus and 
rushes intersected by winding, hidden streams, 
Joshua and his fierce clans of fighting men met the 
Kings of the north with their horses and chariots, 
"at the waters of Merom," in the last great battle 
for the possession of the Promised Land. It was a 
furious conflict, the hordes of footmen against the 
squadrons of horsemen; but the shrewd command 
that came from Joshua decided it: "Hough their 
horses and burn their chariots with fire." The Ca- 
naanites and the Amorites and the Hittites and the 
Hivites were swept from the field, driven over the 
western mountains, and the Israelites held the Jor- 
dan from Jericho to Hermon. (Joshua xi:l-15.) 

The springs that burst from the hills to the left of 
our path and run down to the sluggish channels of 
the marsh on our right are abundant and beautiful. 

Here is *Ain Mellaha, a crystal pool a hundred 
yards wide, with wild mint and watercress growing 
around it, white and yellow lilies floating on its 
268 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

surface, and great fish showing themselves in the 
transparent open spaces among the weeds, where 
the water bubbles up from the bottom through 
dancing hillocks of clean, white sand and shining 
pebbles. 

Here is 'Ain el-Belata, a copious stream breaking 
forth from the rocks beneath a spreading terebinth- 
tree, and rippling down with merry rapids toward 
the jungle of rustling reeds and plumed papyrus. 

While luncheon is preparing in the shade of the 
terebinth, I wade into the brook and cast my fly 
along the ripples. A couple of ragged, laughing, 
bare-legged Bedouin boys follow close behind me, 
watching the new sport with wonder. The fish are 
here, as lively and gamesome as brook trout, plump, 
golden-sided fellows ten or twelve inches long. The 
feathered hooks tempt them, and they rise freely to 
the lure. My tattered pages are greatly excited, and 
make impromptu pouches in the breast of their 
robes, stuflSng in the fish until they look quite fat. 
The catch is enough for a good supper for their whole 
family, and a dozen more for a delicious fish-salad at 
our camp that night. What kind of fish are they ? 
269 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

I do not know : doubtless something Scriptural and 
Oriental. But they taste good; and so far as there 
is any record, they are the first fish ever taken with 
the artificial fly in the sources of the Jordan. 

The plain of Huleh is full of life. Flocks of water- 
fowl and solemn companies of storks circle over the 
swamps. The wet meadows are covered with herds 
of black buffaloes, wallowing in the ditches, or star- 
ing at us sullenly under their drooping horns. Little 
bunches of horses, and brood mares followed by their 
long-legged, awkward foals, gallop beside our caval- 
cade, whinnying and kicking up their heels in the 
joy of freedom. Flocks of black goats clamber up 
the rocky hillsides, following the goatherd who plays 
upon his rustic pipe quavering and fantastic music, 
softened by distance into a wild sweetness. Small 
black cattle with white faces march in long files 
across the pastures, or wander through the thickets of 
bulrushes and papyrus and giant fennel, appearing 
and disappearing as the screen of broad leaves and 
trembling plumes close behind them. 

A few groups of huts made out of wattled reeds 
stand beside the sluggish watercourses, just as they 
270 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

did when Macgregor in his Rob Roy canoe at- 
tempted to explore this impenetrable morass forty 
years ago. Along the higher ground are lines of black 
Bedouin tents, arranged in transitory villages. 

These flitting habitations of the nomads, who 
come down from the hills and lofty deserts to fatten 
their flocks and herds among unfailing pasturage, 
are all of one pattern. The low, flat roof of black 
goats' hair is lifted by the sticks which support it, 
into half a dozen little peaks, perhaps five or six feet 
from the ground. Between these peaks the cloth sags 
down, and is made fast along the edges by intricate 
and confusing guy-ropes. The tent is shallow, not 
more than six feet deep, and from twelve to thirty 
feet long, according to the wealth of the owner and 
the size of his family,— two things which usually cor- 
respond. The sides and the partitions are some- 
times made of woven reeds, like coarse matting. 
Within there is an apartment (if you can call it so) 
for the family, a pen for the chickens, and room for 
dogs, cats, calves and other creatures to find shelter. 
The fireplace of flat stones is in the centre, and the 
smoke oozes out through the roof and sides. 

271 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

The Bedouin men, in flowing hurnous and kefji-' 
yehy with the 'agal of dark twisted camel's hair hke 
a crown upon their heads, are almost all handsome: 
clean-cut, haughty faces, bold in youth and digni- 
fied in old age. The women look weatherbeaten 
and withered beside them. Even when you see a 
fine face in the dark blue mantle or under the white 
head-dress, it is almost always disfigured by purplish 
tattooing around the lips and chin. Some of the 
younger girls are beautiful, and most of the children 
are entrancing. 

They play games in a ring, with songs and clap- 
ping hands; the boys charge up and down among 
the tents with wild shouts, driving a round bone or a 
donkey's hoof with their shinny-sticks; the girls 
chase one another and hide among the bushes in 
some primeval form of "tag" or "hide-and-seek." 

A merry little mob pursues us as we ride through 
each encampment, with outstretched hands and 
half -jesting, half -plaintive cries of Bakhshish I 
bakhshish!'' They do not really expect anything. 
It is only a part of the game. And when the Lady 
holds out her open hand to them and smiles as she 
272 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

repeats, ^'Bakhshish! bakhshish they take the 
joke quickly, and run away, laughing, to their sports. 

At one village, in the dusk, there is an open-air 
wedding: a row of men dancing; a ring of women 
and girls looking on; musicians playing the shep- 
herd's pipe and the drum; maidens running beside 
us to beg a present for the invisible bride: a rude 
charcoal sketch of human society, primitive, irre- 
pressible, confident, encamped for a moment on the 
shadowy border of the fecund and unconquerable 
marsh. 

Thus we traverse the strange country of Bedouinia, 
travelhng all day in the presence of the Great Sheikh 
of Mountains, and sleep at night on the edge of a 
little village whose name we shall never know. 
A dozen times we ask George for the real name of 
that place, and a dozen times he repeats it for us 
with painstaking courtesy; it sounds like a com- 
promise between a cough and a sneeze. 



273 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 



III 

WHERE JORDAN RISES 

The Jordan is assembled in the northern end of 
the basin of Huleh under a mysterious curtain of tall, 
tangled water-plants. Into that ancient and impene- 
trable place of hiding and blending enter many little 
springs and brooks, but the main sources of the river 
are three. 

The first and the longest is the Hasbani, a strong, 
foaming stream that comes down with a roar from 
the western slope of Hermon. We cross it by the 
double arch of a dilapidated Saracen bridge, looking 
down upon thickets of oleander, willow, tamarisk 
and woodbine. 

The second and largest source springs from the 
rounded hill of Tel el-Kadi, the supposed site of the 
ancient city of Dan, the northern border of Israel. 
Here the wandering, landless Danites, finding a 
country to their taste, put the too fortunate inhabi- 
tants of Leshem to the sword and took possession. 
And here King Jereboam set up one of his idols of 
the golden calf. 

274 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

There is no vestige of the city, no trace of the 
idolatrous shrine, on the huge mound which rises 
thirty or forty feet above the plain. But it is thickly 
covered with trees: poplars and oaks and wild figs 
and acacias and wild olives. A pair of enormous 
veterans, a valonia oak and a terebinth, make a 
broad bower of shade above the tomb of an un- 
known Mohammedan saint, and there we eat our 
midday meal, with the murmur of running waters 
all around us, a clear rivulet singing at our feet, 
and the chant of innumerable birds filling the vault 
of foliage above our heads. 

After lunch, instead of sleeping, two of us wander 
into the dense grove that spreads over the mound. 
Tiny streams of water trickle through it: black- 
berry-vines and wild grapes are twisted in the under- 
growth; ferns and flowery nettles and mint grow 
waist-high. The main spring is at the western base 
of the mound. The water comes bubbling and 
whirling out from under a screen of wild figs and 
vines, forming a pool of palest, clearest blue, a hun- 
dred feet in diameter. Out of this pool the new-born 
river rushes, foaming and shouting down the hill- 
275 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

side, through lines of flowering styrax and hawthorn 
and willows trembling over its wild joy. 

The third and most impressive of the sources of 
Jordan is at Baniy^, on one of the foothills of Her- 
mon. Our path thither leads us up from Dan, 
through high green meadows, shaded by oak-trees, 
sprinkled with innumerable blossoming shrubs and 
bushes, and looking down upon the lower fields blue 
with lupins and vetches, or golden with yellow 
chrysanthemums beneath which the red glow of the 
clover is dimly burning like a secret fire. 

Presently we come, by way of a broad, natural 
terrace where the white encampment of the Moslem 
dead lies gleaming beneath the shade of mighty 
oaks and terebinths, and past the friendly olive-grove 
where our own tents are standing, to a deep ravine 
filled to the brim with luxuriant verdure of trees and 
vines and ferns. Into this green cleft a little river, 
dancing and singing, suddenly plunges and disap- 
pears, and from beneath the veil of moist and 
trembling leaves we hear the sound of its wild joy, 
a fracas of leaping, laughing waters. 

An old Roman bridge spans the stream on the 
276 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

brink of its downward leap. Crossing over, we ride 
through the ruined gateway of the town of Baniy§,s, 
turn to right and left among its dirty, narrow 
streets, pass into a leafy lane, and come out in 
front of a cliff of ruddy limestone, with niches and 
shrines carved on its face, and a huge, dark cavern 
gaping in the centre. 

A tumbled mass of broken rocks lies below the 
mouth of the cave. From this slope of debris, sixty 
or seventy feet long, a line of springs gush forth in 
singing foam. Under the shadow of trembling pop- 
lars and broad-boughed sycamores, amid the lush 
greenery of wild figs and grapes, bracken and bri- 
ony and morning-glory, drooping maidenhair and 
flower-laden styrax, the hundred rills swiftly run 
together and flow away with one impulse, a full- 
grown little river. 

There is an immemorial charm about the place 
Mysteries of grove and fountain, of cave and hilltop, 
bewitch it with the magic of Nature's life, ever 
springing and passing, flowering and fading, basking 
in the open sunlight and hiding in the secret places 
of the earth. It is such a place as Claude Lorraine 
277 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

might have imagined and painted as the scene of 
one of his mythical visions of Arcadia; such a place 
as antique fancy might have chosen and decked with 
altars for the worship of unseen dryads and nymphs, 
oreads and naiads. And so, indeed, it was chosen, 
and so it was decked. 

Here, in all probability, was Baal- Gad, where the 
Canaanites paid their reverence to the waters that 
spring from underground. Here, certainly, was 
Paneas of the Greeks, where the rites of Pan and all 
the nymphs were celebrated. Here Herod the 
Great built a marble temple to Augustus the Toler- 
ant, on this terrace of rock above the cave. Here, no 
doubt, the statue of the Emperor looked down upon 
a strange confusion of revelries and wild offerings in 
honour of the unknown powers of Nature. 

All these things have withered, crumbled, van- 
ished. There are no more statues, altars, priests, 
revels and sacrifices at Baniyas — only the fragment 
of an inscription around one of the votive niches 
carved on the cliff, which records the fact that the 
niche was made by a certain person who at that 
time was "Priest of Pan.'* But the name of this 
278 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

"person who wished to he remembered is precisely the 
part of the carving which is illegible. 

Ironical inscription ! Still the fountains gush from 
the rocks, the poplars tremble in the breeze, the 
sweet incense rises from the orange-flowered styrax, 
the birds chant the joy of living, the sunlight and the 
moonlight fall upon the sparkling waters, and the 
liquid starlight drips through the glistening leaves. 
But the Priest of Pan is forgotten, and all that old 
interpretation and adoration of Nature, sensuous, 
passionate, full of mingled cruelty and ecstasy, 
has melted like a mist from her face, and left her 
serene and pure and lovely as ever. 

Here at Paneas, after the city had been rebuilt by 
Philip the Tetrarch and renamed after him and his 
Imperial master, there came one day a Peasant of 
Galilee who taught His disciples to draw near to 
Nature, not with fierce revelry and superstitious awe, 
but with tranquil confidence and calm joy. The 
goatfoot god, the god of panic, the great god Pan, 
reigns no more beside the upper springs of Jordan. 
The name that we remember here, the name that 
makes the message of flowing stream and sheltering 
279 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

tree and singing bird more clear and cool and sweet 
to our hearts, is the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 

IV 

C.ESAREA PHILIPPI 

Yes, this little Mohammedan town of Baniyas, 
with its twoscore wretched houses built of stones 
from the ancient ruins and huddled within the 
broken walls of the citadel, is the ancient site of 
Csesarea Philippi. In the happy days that we spend 
here, rejoicing in the most beautiful of all our camps 
in the Holy Land, and yielding ourselves to the full 
charm of the out-of-doors more perfectly expressed 
than we had ever thought to find it in Palestine, — in 
this little paradise of friendly trees and fragrant 
flowers, 

"at snowy Hermon's foot, 
Amid the music of his waterfalls," — 

the thought of Jesus is like the presence of a com- 
rade, while the memories of human grandeur and 
transience, of man's long toil, unceasing conflict, 
280 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

vain pride and futile despair, visit us only as flick- 
ering ghosts. 

We climb to the top of the peaked hill, a thousand 
feet above the town, and explore the great Crusaders' 
Castle of Subeibeh, a ruin vaster in extent and nobler 
in situation than the famous Schloss of Heidelberg. 
It not only crowns but completely covers the sum- 
mit of the steep ridge with the huge drafted stones of 
its foundations. The immense round towers, the 
double-vaulted gateways, are still standing. Long 
flights of steps lead down to subterranean reservoirs 
of water. Spacious courtyards, where the knights 
and men-at-arms once exercised, are transformed 
into vegetable gardens, and the passageways between 
the north citadel and the south citadel are travelled 
by flocks of lop-eared goats. 

From room to room we clamber by slopes of 
crumbling stone, discovering now a guard-chamber 
with loopholes for the archers, and now an arched 
chapel with the plaster intact and faint touches of 
colour still showing upon it. Perched on the high 
battlements we look across the valley of Huleh and 
281 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

the springs of Jordan to Kal'at Hiintn on the moun- 
tains of NaphtaH, and to Kal'at esh-Shakif above the 
gorge of the River Lit^ni. 

From these three great fortresses, in the time of the 
Crusaders, flashed and answered the signal-fires of the 
chivalry of Europe fighting for possession of Palestine. 
What noble companies of knights and ladies inhab- 
ited these castles, what rich festivals were celebrated 
within these walls, what desperate struggles defended 
them, until at last the swarthy hordes of Saracens 
stormed the gates and poured over the defences and 
planted the standard of the crescent on the towers 
and lit the signal-fires of Islam from citadel to citadel. 

All the fires have gone out now. The yellow whin 
blazes upon the hillsides. The wild fig-tree splits 
the masonry. The scorpion lodges in the deserted 
chambers. On the fallen stone of the Crusaders' 
gate, where the Moslem victor has carved his Arabic 
inscription, a green-gray Hzard poises motionless, 
like a bronze figure on a paper-weight. 

We pass through the southern entrance of the 
village of Baniyas, a massive square portal, rebuilt 



0) 

tc 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

by some Arab ruler, and go out on the old Roman 
bridge which spans the ravine. The aqueduct car- 
ried by the bridge is still full of flowing water, and the 
drops which fall from it in a fine mist make ^ little 
rainbow as the afternoon Sun shines through the 
archway draped with maidenhair fern. On the 
stone pavement of the bridge we trace the ruts worn 
two thousand years ago by the chariots of the men 
who conquered the world. The chariots have all 
rolled by. On the broken edge of the tower above 
the gateway sits a ragged Bedouin boy, making shrill, 
plaintive music with his pipe of reeds. 

We repose in front of our tents among the olive- 
trees at the close of the day. The cool sound of 
running streams and rustling poplars is on the 
moving air, and the orange-golden sunset enchants 
the orchard with mystical light. All the swift visions 
of striving Saracens and Crusaders, of conquering 
Greeks and Romans, fade away from us, and we see 
the figure of the Man of Nazareth with His little 
company of friends and disciples coming up from 
Galilee. 

283 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN . 

It was here that Jesus retreated with His few 
faithful followers from the opposition of the Scribes 
and Pharisees. This was the northernmost spot of 
earth ever trodden by His feet, the longest distance 
from Jerusalem that He ever travelled. Here in 
this exquisite garden of Nature, in a region of the 
Gentiles, within sight of the shrines devoted to those 
Greek and Roman rites which were so luxurious 
and so tolerant, four of the most beautiful and 
significant events of His life and ministry took place. 

He asked His disciples plainly to tell their secret 
thought of Him — whom they believed their Mas- 
ter to be. And when Peter answered simply: 
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God," Jesus blessed him for the answer, and 
declared that He would build His church upon 
that rock. 

Then He took Peter and James and John with 
Him and climbed one of the high and lonely slopes 
of Hermon. There He was transfigured before them. 
His face shining like the sun and His garments glis- 
tening like the snow on the mountain-peaks. But 
when they begged to stay there with Him, He led 
284 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

them down to the valley again, among the sinning 
and suffering children of men. 

At the foot of the mount of transfiguration He 
healed the demoniac boy whom his father had 
brought to the other disciples, but for whom they 
had been unable to do anything; and He taught 
them that the power to help men comes from faith 
and prayer. 

And then, at last, He turned His steps from this 
safe and lovely refuge, (where He might surely have 
lived in peace, or from which He might have gone 
out unmolested into the wide Gentile world), back- 
ward to His own country. His own people, the great, 
turbulent, hard-hearted Jewish city, and the fate 
which was not to be evaded by One who loved sinners 
and came to save them. He went down into Galilee, 
down through Samaria and Perea, down to Jerusa- 
lem, down to Gethsemane and to Golgotha, — ^fearless, 
calm, — sustained and nourished by that secret food 
which satisfied His heart in doing the will of God. 

It was in the quest of this Jesus, in the hope of 
somehow drawing nearer to Him, that we made our 
285 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And now, in the 
cool of the evening at Csesarea Philippi, we ask 
ourselves whether our desire has been granted, our 
hope fulfilled ? 

Yes, more richly, more wonderfully than we dared 
to dream. For we have found a new vision of Christ, 
simpler, clearer, more satisfying, in the freedom and 
reality of God's out-of-doors. 

Not through the mists and shadows of an infinite 
regret, the sadness of sweet, faded dreams and 
hopes that must be resigned, as Pierre Loti saw the 
phantom of a Christ whose irrevocable disappearance 
has left the world darker than ever! 

Not amid strange portents and mysterious rites, 
crowned with I know not what aureole of traditionary 
splendours, founder of elaborate ceremonies and 
centre of lamplit shrines, as Matilde Serao saw the 
image of that Christ whom the legends of men have 
honoured and obscured! 

The Jesus whom we have found is the Child of 
Nazareth playing among the flowers; the Man of 
Galilee walking beside the lake, healing the sick, 
comforting the sorrowful, cheering the lonely and 
286 



THE SPRINGS OF JORDAN 

despondent; the well- beloved Son of God transfigured 
in the sunset glow of snowy Hermon, weeping by the 
sepulchre in Bethany, agonizing in the moonlit gar- 
den of Gethsemane, giving His life for those who 
did not understand Him, though they loved Him, 
and for those who did not love Him because they did 
not understand Him, and rising at last triumphant 
over death, — such a Saviour as all men need and 
as no man could ever have imagined if He had not 
been real. 

His message has not died away, nor will it ever die. 
For confidence and calm joy He tells us to turn to 
Nature. For love and sacrifice He bids us live close 
to our fellowmen. For comfort and immortal hope 
He asks us to believe in Him and in our Father, God. 

That is all. 

But the bringing of that heavenly message made 
the country to which it came the Holy Land. And 
the believing of that message, to-day, will lead any 
child of man into the kingdom of heaven. And 
the keeping of that faith, the following of that Life, 
will transfigure any country beneath the blue sky 
into a holy land. 

287 



THE PSALM OF A SOJOURNER 



Thou hast taken me into the tent of the world, O God: 
Beneath thy blue canopy I have found shelter: 
Therefore thou wilt not deny me the right of a guest. 

Naked and poor I arrived at the door before sunset: 
Thou hast refreshed me with beautiful bowls of milk: 
As a great chief thou hast set forth food in abundance. 

I have loved the daily delights of thy dwelling: 
Thy moon and thy stars have lighted me to my bed: 
In the morning I have found joy with thy servants. 

Surely thou wilt not send me away in the darkness? 
There the enemy Death is lying in wait for my soul: 
Thou art the host of my life and I claim thy pro- 
tection. 

Then the Lord of the tent of the world made answer: 
The right of a guest endureth but for an appointed 
time: 

After three days and three nights cometh the day of 
departure. 



Yet hearken to me since thou fearest the foe in the 
dark: 

I loill make with thee a new covenant of everlasting 
hospitality : 

Behold I will come unto thee as a stranger and be thy 
guest. 

Poor and needy will I come that thou mayest entertain 
me: 

Meek and lowly will I come that thou mayest find a 
friend: 

With mercy and with truth will I come to give thee 
comfort. 

Therefore open the door of thy heart and bid me wel- 
come: 

In this tent of the world I will be thy brother of the 
bread: 

And when thou far est forth I will be thy companion 
forever. 

Then my soul rested in the word of the Lord: 
And I saw that the curtains of the world were 
shaken, 

But I looked beyond them to the eternal camp-fires 
of my friend. 

289 



XII 

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 



I 



THROUGH THE LAND OF THE DRUSES 

You may go to Damascus now by rail, if you like, 
and have a choice between two rival routes, one under 
government ownership, the other built and man- 
aged by a corporation. But to us encamped among 
the silvery olives at Baniyas, beside the springs of 
Jordan, it seemed a happy circumstance that both 
railways were so far away that it would have taken 
longer to reach them than to ride our horses straight 
into the city. We were delivered from the modern 
folly of trying to save time by travelling in a 
conveyance more speedy than picturesque, and left 
free to pursue our journey in a leisurely, indepen- 
dent fashion and by the road that would give us most 
pleasure. So we chose the longer way, the northern 
path around Mount Hermon, through the country 
of the Druses, instead of the more frequented road 
to the east by Kafr Hawar. 

How delightful is the morning of such a journey! 
293 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

The fresh face of the world bathed in sparkling 
dew; the greetings from tent to tent as we four 
friends make our rendezvous from the far countries 
of sleep; the rehsh of breakfast in the open air; the 
stir of the camp in preparation for a flitting; canvas 
sinking to the ground, bales and boxes heaped to- 
gether, mule-bells tinkling through the grove, horses 
refreshed by their long rest w^hinnying and nipping 
at each other in play — all these are charming vari- 
ations and accompaniments to the old tune of 
"Boots and Saddles." 

The immediate effect of such a setting out for 
a day's ride is to renew in the heart those "vital 
feelings of delight" which make one simply and 
inexplicably glad to be alive. We are delivered 
from those morbid questionings and exorbitant 
demands by which we are so often possessed 
and plagued as by some strange inward malady. 
We feel a sense of health and harmony diffused 
through body and mind as we ride over the beautiful 
terrace which slopes down from Baniyas to Tel-el 
Kadi. 

We are glad of the green valonia oaks that spread 
294 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

their shade over us, and of the blossoming haw- 
thorns that scatter their flower-snow on the hill- 
side. We are glad of the crested larks that rise 
warbling from the grass, and of the buntings and 
chaJB&nches that make their small merry music in 
every thicket, and of the black and white chats that 
shift their burden of song from stone to stone 
beside the path, and of the cuckoo that tells his name 
to us from far away, and of the splendid bee-eaters 
that glitter over us like a flock of winged emeralds 
as we climb the rocky hill toward the north. We 
are glad of the broom in golden flower, and of the 
pink and white rock-roses, and of the spicy fragrance 
of mint and pennjrroyal that our horses trample out 
as they splash through the spring holes and little 
brooks. We are glad of the long, wide views west- 
ward over the treeless mountains of Naphtali and 
the southern ridges of the Lebanon, and of the 
glimpses of the ruined castles of the Crusaders, Kal'at 
esh-Shaklf and Hunin, perched like dilapidated 
eagles on their distant crags. Everything seems to 
us like a personal gift. We have the feeling of own- 
ership for this day of all the world's beauty. We 
295 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

could not explain or justify it to any sad philoso- 
pher who might reproach us for unreasoning 
felicity. We should be defenceless before his argu- 
ments and indifferent to his scorn. We should 
simply ride on into the morning, reflecting in our 
hearts something of the brightness of the birds' 
plumage, the cheerfulness of the brooks' song, the 
undimmed hyaline of the sky, and so, perhaps, ful- 
filling the Divine Intention of Nature as well as if 
we chose to becloud our mirror with melancholy 
thoughts. 

We are following up the valley of the longest and 
highest, but not the largest, of the sources of the 
Jordan : the little River Hasbani, a strong and lovely 
stream, which rises somewhere in the northern end 
of the Wadi et-Teim, and flows along the western 
base of Mount Hermon, receiving the tribute of tor- 
rents which burst out in foaming springs far up the 
ravines, and are fed underground by the melting of 
the perpetual snow of the great mountain. Now and 
then we have to cross one of these torrents, by a rude 
stone bridge or by wading. All along the way Her- 
296 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

mon looks down upon us from his throne, nine 
thousand feet in air. His head is wrapped in a 
turban of spotless white, like a Druse chieftain, and 
his snowy winter cloak still hangs down over his 
shoulders, though its lower edges are already 
fringed and its seams opened by the warm suns of 
April. 

Presently we cross a bridge to the west bank of 
the Hasbani, and ride up the delightful vale where 
poplars and mulberries, olives, almonds, vines and 
figs, grow abundantly along the course of the river. 
There are low weirs across the stream for purposes 
of irrigation, and a larger dam supplies a mill with 
power. To the left is the sharp barren ridge of 
the Jebel ez-Zohr separating us from the gorge of the 
River Litani. Groups of labourers are at work on 
the watercourses among the groves and gardens. 
Vine-dressers are busy in the vineyards. Plough- 
men are driving their shallow furrows through the 
stony fields on the hillside. The little river, here in 
its friendliest mood, winds merrily among the 
plantations and orchards which it nourishes, making 
a cheerful noise over beds of pebbles, and humming 
297 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

a deeper note where the clear green water plunges 
over a weir. 

We have now been in the saddle five hours ; the sun 
is ardent; the temperature is above eighty-five 
degrees in the shade, and along the bridle-path 
there is no shade. We are hungry, thirsty, and 
tired. As we cross the river again, splashing 
through a ford, our horses drink eagerly and at- 
tempt to lie down in the cool water. We have to 
use strong persuasion not only with them, but also 
with our own spirits, to pass by the green grass and 
the sheltering olive-trees on the east bank and push 
on up the narrow, rocky defile in which Hasbeiya 
is hidden. The bridle-path is partly paved with 
rough cobblestones, hard and slippery, which make 
the going weariful. The heat presses on us like a 
burden. Things that would have delighted us in the 
morning now give us no pleasure. We have made 
the greedy traveller's mistake of measuring our 
march by the extent of our endurance instead of by 
the limit of our enjoyment. 

Hasbeiya proves to be a rather thriving and pict- 
uresque town built around the steep sides of a bay 

298 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

or opening in the valley. The amphitheatre of hills 
is terraced with olive-orchards and vineyards. 
There are also many mulberry-trees cultivated 
for the silkworms, and the ever-present figs and 
almonds are not wanting. The stone houses of the 
town rise, on winding paths, one above the other, 
many of them having arched porticoes, red-tiled 
roofs, and green-latticed windows. It is a place of 
about five thousand population, now more than 
half Christian, but formerly one of the strongholds 
and capitals of the mysterious Druse religion. 

Our tents are pitched at the western end of the 
town, on a low terrace where olive-trees are growing. 
When we arrive we find the camp surrounded and 
filled with curious, laughing children. The boys 
are a little troublesome at first, but a word from an 
old man who seems to be in charge brings them to 
order, and at least fifty of them, big and little, squat 
in a semicircle on the grass below the terrace, 
watching us with their lustrous brown eyes. 

They look full of fun, those young Druses and 
Maronites and Greeks and Mohammedans, so I 
try a mild joke on them, by pretending that they 
299 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

are a class and that I am teaching them a lesson. 
"A, B, C/' I chant, and wait for them to repeat 
after me. They promptly take the lesson out of my 
hands and recite the entire English alphabet in 
chorus, winding up with shouts of "Goot mornin'! 
How you do?" and merry laughter. They are all 
pupils from the mission schools which have been 
established since the great Massacre of 1860, and 
which are helping, I hope, to make another forever 
impossible. 

One of our objects in coming to Hasbeiya was to 
ascend Mount Hermon. We send for the Druse 
guide and the Christian guide; both of them assure 
us that the adventure is impossible on account of 
the deep snow, which has increased during the last 
fortnight. We can not get within a mile of the 
summit. The snow will be waist-deep in the 
hollows. The mountain is inaccessible until June. 
So, after exchanging visits with the missionaries and 
seeing something of their good work, we ride on our 
way the next morning. 



300 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 



II 

RASHEIYA AND ITS AMERICANISM 

The journey to Rasheiya is like that of the pre- 
ceding day, except that the bridle-paths are 
rougher and more precipitous, and the views wider 
and more splendid. We have crossed the Hasbant 
again, and leaving the Druses' valley, the Wadi et- 
Teim, behind us, have climbed the high table-land to 
the west. We did not know why George Cavalcanty 
led us away from the path marked in our Baedeker, 
but we took it for granted that he had some good 
reason. It is well not to ask a wise dragoman all 
the questions that you can think of. Tell him where 
you want to go, and let him show you how to get 
there. Certainly we are not inclined to complain 
of the longer and steeper route by which he has 
brought us, when we sit down at lunch-time among 
the limestone crags and pinnacles of the wild upland 
and look abroad upon a landscape which offers 
the grandeur of immense outlines and vast distances, 
the beauty of a crystal clearness in all its infinitely 
301 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

varied forms, and the enchantment of gemlike col- 
ours, delicate, translucent, vi^dd, shifting and playing 
in hues of rose and violet and azure and purple and 
golden brown and bright green, as if the bosom of 
Mother Earth were the breast of a dove, breathing 
softly in the sunlight. 

As we climb toward Rasheiya we find our- 
selves going back a month or more into early spring. 
Here are the flowers that we saw in the Plain of 
Sharon on the first of April, gorgeous red anem- 
ones, fragrant purple and white cyclamens, delicate 
blue irises. The fig-tree is putting forth her tender 
leaf. The vines, lying flat on the ground, are bare 
and dormant. The springing grain, a few inches 
long, is in its first flush of almost dazzling green. 

The town, built in terraces on three sides of a 
rocky hill, 4,100 feet above the sea, commands an 
extensive view. Hermon is in full sight; snow- 
capped Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon face each 
other for forty miles ; and the little lake of Kafr Kuk 
makes a spot of blue light in the foreground. 

We are camped on the threshing-floor, a level mead- 
ow beyond and below the town ; and there the Ras- 
302 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

heiyan gilded youth come riding their blooded horses 
in the afternoon, running races over the smooth turf 
and showing off their horsemanship for our benefit. 

There is something very attractive about these Ara- 
bian horses as you see them in their own country. 
They are spirited, fearless, sure-footed, and yet, 
as a rule, so docile that they may be ridden with a 
halter. They are good for a long journey, or a swift 
run, or a fantasia. The prevailing colour among 
them is gray, but you see many bays and sorrels and 
a few splendid blacks. An Arabian stallion satisfies 
the romantic ideal of how a horse ought to look. 
His arched neck, small head, large eyes wide apart, 
short body, round flanks, delicate pasterns, and little 
feet; the way he tosses his mane and cocks his flow- 
ing tail when he is on parade; the swiftness and 
spring of his gallop, the dainty grace of his walk — 
when you see these things you recognise at once the 
real, original horse which the painters used to depict 
in their "Portraits of General X on his Favourite 
Charger." 

I asked Calvalcanty what one of these fine crea- 
tures would cost. "A good horse, two or three hun- 
303 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

dred dollars; an extra-good one, four hundred; a 
fancy one, Vv^ho knows ?" 

We find Rasheiya full of Americanism. We 
walk out to take photographs, and at almost every 
street corner some young man who has been in the 
United States or Canada salutes us with: "How are 
you to-day? You fellows come from America? 
What's the news there? Is Bryan elected yet? I 
voted for McKinley, I got a store in Kankakee. 
I got one in Jackson, Miss." A beautiful dark-eyed 
girl, in a dreadful department-store dress, smiles at 
us from an open door and says: "Take my picture ? 
I been at America." 

One talkative and friendly fellow joins us in our 
walk; in fact he takes possession of us, guiding us 
up the crooked alleys and out on the housetops 
v/hich command the best views, and showing us off 
to his friends, — an old gentleman who is spinning 
goats' hair for the coarse black tents (St. Paul's 
trade), and two ladies who are grinding com in a 
hand-mill, one pushing and the other pulling. Our 
self-elected guide has spent seven years in Illinois 
and Indiana, peddling and store-keeping. He has 
304 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

returned to Rasheiya as a successful adventurer 
and built a stone house with a red roof and an 
arched portico. Is he going to settle down there for 
life? "I not know," says he. "Guess I want sell 
my house now. This country beautiful; I like look 
at her. But America free — ^good government — ^good 
place to live. Gee whiz ! I go back quick, you bet." 

Ill 

ANTI-LEBANON AND THE RIVER 
ABANA 

Our path the next day leads up to the east over the 
ridges of the slight depression which lies between 
Mount Hermon and the rest of the Anti-Lebanon 
range. We pass the disconsolate village and lake 
of Kafr Kuk. The water which shone so blue in the 
distance now confesses itseK a turbid, stagnant pool, 
locked in among the hills, and breeding fevers for 
those who live beside it. The landscape grows wild 
and sullen as we ascend; the hills are strewn with 
shattered fragments of rock, or worn into battered 
and fantastic crags; the bottoms of the ravines 
305 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

are soaked and barren as if the winter floods had 
just left them. Presently we are riding among 
great snowdrifts. It is the first day of May. We 
walk on the snow, and pack a basketful on one of 
the mules, and pelt each other with snowballs. 

We have gone back another month in the calendar 
and are now at the place where " winter lingers in 
the lap of spring." Snowdrops, crocuses, and Kttle 
purple grape-hyacinths are blooming at the edge 
of the drifts. The thorny shrubs and bushes, and 
spiny herbs Uke astragalus and cousinia, are green- 
stemmed but leafless, and the birds that flutter 
among them are still in the first rapture of vernal 
bliss, the gay music that follows mating and pre- 
cedes nesting. Big dove-coloured partridges, beau- 
tifully marked with black and red, are running 
among the rocks. We are at the turn of the year, 
the surprising season when the tide of light and life 
and love swiftly begins to rise. 

From this Alpine region we descend through 
two months in half a day. It is mid-March on a 
beautiful green plain where herds of horses were 
feeding around an encampment of black Bedouin 
306 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

tents; the beginning of April at Khan Meithelun, 
on the post-road, where there are springs, and 
poplar-groves, in one of which we eat our lunch, 
with lemonade cooled by the snows of Hermon; the 
end of April at Dimas, where we find our tents 
pitched upon the threshing-floor, a levelled terrace 
of clay looking down upon the flat roofs of the village. 

Our camp is 3,600 feet above sea-level, and 
our morning path follows the telegraph-poles steeply 
down to the post-road, and so by a more grad- 
ual descent along the hard and dusty turnpike 
toward Damascus. The landscape, at first, is bare 
and arid : rounded reddish mountains, gray hillsides, 
yellowish plains faintly tinged with a thin green. 
But at El-Hami the road drops into the valley of 
the Barada, the far-famed River Abana, and we 
find ourselves in a verdant paradise. 

Tall trees arch above the road; white balconies 
gleam through the foliage; the murmur and the 
laughter of flowing streams surround us. The rail- 
road and the carriage-road meet and cross each other 
down the vale. Country houses and cafes, some dingy 
and dilapidated, others new and trim, are half hidden 
307 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

among the groves or perched close beside the high- 
way. Poplars and willows, plane-trees and lindens, 
walnuts and mulberries, apricots and almonds, 
twisted fig-trees and climbing roses, grow joyfully 
wherever the parcelled water flows in its many 
channels. Above this line, on the sides of the vale, 
everything is bare and brown and dry. But the 
depth of the valley is an embroidered sash of bloom 
laid across the sackcloth of the desert. And in the 
centre of this long verdure runs the parent river, a 
flood of clear green; rushing, leaping, curling into 
white foam ; filling its channel of thirty or forty feet 
from bank to bank, and making the silver-leafed 
v/illows and poplars, that stand with their feet in 
the stream, tremble with the swiftness of its cool, 
strong current. Truly Naaman the S^nrian was right 
in his boasting to the prophet Elisha: Abana, the 
river of Damascus, is better than all the waters of 
Israel. 

The vale narrows as we descend along the 
stream, until suddenly we pass through a gateway 
of steep cliffs and emerge upon an open plain beset 
with mountains on three sides. The river, parting 
308 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

into seven branches, goes out to water a hundred and 
fifty square miles of groves and gardens, and we 
follow the road through the labyrinth of rich and 
luscious green. There are orchards of apricots 
enclosed with high mud walls; and open gates 
through which we catch glimpses of crimson rose- 
trees and scarlet pomegranates and little fields of 
wheat glowing with blood-red poppies; and hedges 
of white hawthorn and wild brier; and trees, trees, 
trees, everywhere embowering us and shutting us in. 

Presently we see, above the leafy tops, a sharp- 
pointed minaret with a golden crescent above it. 
Then we find ourselves again beside the main 
current of the Barada, running swift and merry in 
a walled channel straight across an open common, 
where soldiers are exercising their horses, and 
donkeys and geese are feeding, and children are 
playing, and dyers are sprinkling their long strips of 
blue cotton cloth laid out upon the turf beside the 
river. The road begins to look like the commence- 
ment of a street; domes and minarets rise before 
us; there are glimpses of gray walls and towers, 
a few shops and open-air cafes, a couple of hotel 
309 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

signs. The river dives under a bridge and disap- 
pears by a hundred channels beneath the city, 
leaving us at the western entrance of Damascus. 

IV 

THE CITY THAT A LITTLE RIVER 
MADE 

I CANNOT tell whether the river, the gardens, and 
the city would have seemed so magical and entranc- 
ing if we had come upon them in some other way or 
seen them in a different setting. You can never 
detach an experience from its matrix and weigh it 
alone. Comparisons with the environs of Naples 
or Florence visited in an automobile, or with the 
suburbs of Boston seen from a trolley-car, are futile 
and unilluminating. 

The point about the Barada is that it springs 
full-born from the barren sides of the Anti-Lebanon, 
swiftly creates a paradise as it runs, and then dis- 
appears absolutely in a wide marsh on the edge of 
the desert. 

The point about Damascus is that she flourii^hes 
310 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

on a secluded plain, the Ghutah, seventy miles 
from the sea and twenty-three hundred feet above 
it, with no hinterland and no sustaining provinces, 
no political leadership, and no special religious 
sanctity, with nothing, in fact, to account for her 
distinction, her splendour, her populous vitality, 
her self-sufficing charm, except her mysterious 
and enduring quality as a mere city, a hive of 
men. She is the oldest living city in the world; 
no one knows her birthday or her founder's 
name. She has survived the empires and kingdoms 
which conquered her, — Nineveh, Babylon, Samaria, 
Greece, Egypt — their capitals are dust, but Damas- 
cus still blooms "like a tree planted by the rivers of 
water." She has given her name to the reddest of 
roses, the sweetest of plums, the richest of metal- 
work, and the most lustrous of silks; her streets 
have bubbled and eddied with the currents of 

the multitudinous folk 
That do inhabit her and make her great. 

She is the typical city, pure and simple, of the 
Orient, as New York or San Francisco is of the 
311 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

Occident: the open port on the edge of the desert, 
the trading-booth at the foot of the mountains, the 
paviHon in the heart of the blossoming bower, — ^the 
wonderful child of a little river and an imme- 
morial Spirit of Place. 

Every time we go into the city, (whether from 
our tents on the terrace above an ancient and dilapi- 
dated pleasure-garden, or from our red-tiled rooms 
in the good Hotel d 'Orient, to which we had been 
driven by a plague of sand-flies in the camp), we 
step at once into a chapter of the "Arabian Nights' 
Entertainments . ' ' 

It is true, there are electric lights and there is 
a trolley-car crawling around the city; but they no 
more make it Western and modern than a bead 
necklace would change the character of the Venus 
of Milo. The driver of the trolley-car looks like 
one of "The Three Calenders," and a gayly dressed 
little boy beside him blows loudly on an instrument 
of discord as the machine tranquilly advances 
through the crowd. (A man was run over a few 
months ago ; his friends waited for the car to come 
around the next day, pulled the driver from his 
312 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

perch, and stuck a number of long knives through 
him in a truly Oriental manner.) 

The crowd itself is of the most indescribable 
and engaging variety and vivacity. The Turkish 
soldiers in dark uniform and red fez; the cheer- 
ful, grinning water-carriers with their dripping, 
bulbous goatskins on their backs; the white- 
turbaned Druses with their bold, clean-cut faces; 
the bronzed, impassive sons of the desert, with their 
flowing mantles and bright head-cloths held on by 
thick, dark rolls of camel's hair; the rich merchants 
in their silken robes of many colours; the pictu- 
resquely ragged beggars; the Moslem pilgrims 
washing their heads and feet, with much splashing, 
at the pools in the marble courtyards of the mosques ; 
the merry children, running on errands or playing 
with the water that gushes from many a spout at the 
corner of a street or on the wall of a house; the 
veiled Mohammedan women slipping silently through 
the throng, or bending over the trinkets or fabrics in 
some open-fronted shop, lifting the veil for a mo- 
ment to show an olive-tinted cheek and a pair of 
long, liquid brown eyes; the bearded Greek priests 
313 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

in their black robes and cylinder hats; the Christian 
women wrapped in their long white sheets, but with 
their pretty faces uncovered, and a red rose or a 
white jasmine stuck among their smooth, shining 
black tresses; the seller of lemonade with his gaily 
decorated glass vessel on his back and his clinking 
brass cups in his hand, shouting, ''A remedy for the 
heat" — " Cheer up your hearts," — Take care of 
your teeth"; the boy peddling bread, with an im- 
mense tray of thin, flat loaves on his head, crying 
continually to Allah to send him customers; the 
seller of turnip-pickle with a huge pink globe upon 
his shoulder looking like the inside of a pale water- 
melon; the donkeys pattering along between fat 
burdens of grass or charcoal; a much-bedizened 
horseman with embroidered saddle-cloth and glitter- 
ing bridle, riding silent and haughty through the 
crowd as if it did not exist; a victoria dashing along 
the street at a trot, with whip cracking like a pack of 
firecrackers, and shouts of, "O boy! Look out for 
your hack I your foot! your side!" — all these figures 
are mingled in a passing show of which we never 
grow weary. 

314 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

The long bazaars, covered with a round, wooden 
archway rising from the second story of the houses, 
are filled with a rich brown hue like a well-coloured 
meerschaum pipe; and through this mellow, bru- 
mous atmosphere beams of golden sunlight slant 
vividly from holes in the roof. An immense number 
of shops, small and great, shelter themselves in 
these bazaars, for the most part opening, without 
any reserve of a front wall or a door, in frank invita- 
tion to the street. On the earthen pavement, beaten 
hard as cement, camels are kneeling, while the 
merchants let down their corded bales and dis- 
play their Persian carpets or striped silks. The 
cook-shops show their wares and their processes, 
and send up an appetising smell of lamb kibabs and 
fried fish and stuffed cucumbers and stewed beans 
and okra, and many other dainties preparing on 
diminutive charcoal grills. 

In the larger and richer shops, arranged in semi- 
European fashion, there are splendid rugs, and 
embroideries old and new, and delicately chiselled 
brasswork, and furniture of strange patterns lav- 
ishly inlaid with mother-of-pearl; and there I go 
315 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

with the Lady to study the art of bargaining as 
practised between the trained skill of the Levant 
and the native genius of Walla Walla, Washington. 
In the smaller and poorer bazaars the high, arched 
roofs give place to tattered awnings, and some- 
times to branches of trees r the brown air changes 
to an atmosphere of brilliant stripes and patches; 
the tiny shops, (hardly more than open booths), 
are packed and festooned with all kinds of goods, 
garments and ornaments: the chafferers conduct 
their negotiations from the street, (sidewalk there 
is none), or squat beside the proprietor on the little 
platform of his stall. 

The custom of massing the various trades and 
manufactures adds to the picturesque joy of shop- 
ping or dawdling in Damascus. It is like passing 
through rows of different kinds of strange fruits. 
There is a region of dangling slippers, red and 
yellow, like cherries; a little farther on we come to 
a long trellis of clothes, limp and pendulous, like 
bunches of grapes; then we pass through a patch 
of saddles, plain and coloured, decorated with all 
sorts of beads and tinsel, velvet and morocco, lying 
316 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

on the ground or hung on wooden supports, like big, 
fantastic melons. 

In the coppersmiths' bazaar there is an incessant 
clattering of little hammers upon hollow metal. The 
goldsmiths sit silent in their pens within a vast, dim 
building, or bend over their miniature furnaces 
making gold and silver filigree. Here are the car- 
penters using their bare feet in their work almost as 
deftly as their fingers; and yonder the dyers fes- 
tooning their long strips of blue cotton from their 
windows and balconies. Down there, on the way 
to the Great Mosque, the booksellers hold together: 
a dwindling tribe, apparently, for of the thirty or 
forty shops which were formerly theirs not more 
than half a dozen remain true to literature : the rest 
are full of red and yellow slippers. Damascus is 
more inclined to loafing or to dancing than to 
reading. It seems to belong to the gay, smiling, 
easy-going East of Scheherazade and Aladdin, not 
to the sombre and reserved Orient of fierce mystics 
and fanatical fatalists. 

Yet we feel, or imagine that we feel, the hidden 
presence of passions and possibilities that belong to 
317 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

the tragic side of life underneath this laughing mask 
of comedy. No longer ago than 1860, in the great 
Massacre, five thousand Christians perished by fire 
and shot and dagger in two days ; the streets ran with 
blood; the churches were piled with corpses; hun- 
dreds of Christian women were dragged away to 
Moslem harems ; only the brave Abd-el-Kader, with 
his body-guard of dauntless Algerine veterans, was 
able to stay the butchery by flinging himself between 
the blood-drunken mob and their helpless victims. 

This was the last wholesale assassination of 
modern times that a great city has seen, and pros- 
perous, pleasure-loving, insouciant Damascus seems 
to have quite forgotten it. Yet there are still 
enough wild Kurdish shepherds, and fierce Bedouins 
of the desert, and riffraff of camel-drivers and 
herdsmen and sturdy beggars and homeless men, 
among her three hundred thousand people to make 
dangerous material if the tiger-madness should 
break loose again. A gay city is not always a safe 
city. The Lady and I saw a man stabbed to death 
at noon, not fifty feet away from us, in a street be- 
side the Ottoman Bank. 

318 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

Nothing is safe until justice and benevolence 
and tolerance and mutual respect are diffused in 
the hearts of men. How far this inward change 
has gone in Damascus no one can tell. But that 
some advance has been made, by real reforms in 
the Turkish government, by the spread of intelli- 
gence and the enlightenment of self-interest, by the 
sense of next-doorness to Paris and Berlin and Lon- 
don, which telegraphs, railways, and steamships 
have produced, above all by the useful work of 
missionary hospitals and schools, and by the human- 
izing process which has been going on inside of 
all the creeds, no careful observer can doubt. I 
fear that men will still continue to kill each other, 
for various causes, privately and publicly. But 
thank God it is not likely to be done often, if ever 
again, in the name of Religion ! 

The medley of things seen and half understood 
has left patterns damascened upon my memory with 
intricate clearness: immense droves of camels com- 
ing up from the wilderness to be sold in the market; 
factories of inlaid woodwork and wrought brasswork 
in which hundreds of young children, with beautiful 
819 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

and seeming-merry faces, are hammering and fil- 
ing and cutting out the designs traced by the 
draughtsmen who sit at their desks like schoolmas- 
ters; vast mosques with rows of marble columns, 
and floors covered with bright-coloured rugs, and 
files of men, sometimes two hundred in a line, with 
a leader in front of them, making their concerted 
genuflections toward Mecca; costly interiors of 
private houses which outwardly show bare white- 
washed walls, but within welcome the stranger to 
hospitality of fruits, coffee, and sweetmeats, in 
stately rooms ornamented with rich tiles and precious 
marbles, looking upon arcaded courtyards fragrant 
with blossoming orange-trees and musical with 
tinkling fountains; tombs of Moslem warriors and 
saints, — Saladin, the Sultan Beibars, the Sheikh 
Arslan, the philosopher Ibn-el-Arabi, great fighters 
now quiet, and restless thinkers finally satisfied; 
public gardens full of rose-bushes, traversed by 
clear, swift streams, where groups of women sit gos- 
siping in the shade of the trees or in little kiosques, 
the Mohammedans with their light veils not alto- 
gether hiding their olive faces and languid eyes, the 

320 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

Christians and Jewesses with bare heads, heavy 
necklaces of amber, flowers behind their ears, silken 
dresses of soft and varied shades; cafes by the 
river, where grave and important Turks pose for 
hours on red velvet divans, smoking the successive 
cigarette or the continuous nargileh. Out of these 
memory-pictures of Damascus I choose three. 

The Lady and I are climbing up from the great 
Mosque of the Ommayyades into the Minaret of the 
Bride, at the hour of 'Asr, or afternoon prayer. As 
we tread the worn spiral steps in the darkness we 
hear, far above, the chant of the choir of muezzins, 
high-pitched, long-drawn, infinitely melancholy, 
calling the faithful to their devotions. 

Allah akbar ! Allah akbarl Allah is great ! I 
testify there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is 
the prophet of Allah I Come to p^'ayerT' 

The plaintive notes float away over the city 
toward all four quarters of the sky, and quaver into 
silence. We come out from the gloom of the stair- 
case into the dazzling light of the balcony which 
runs around the top of the minaret. For a few 
3£1 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

moments we can see little; but when the first bewil- 
derment passes, we are conscious that all the charm 
and wonder of Damascus are spread at our feet. 

The oval mass of the city lies like a carving 
of old ivory, faintly tinged with pink, on a huge 
table of malachite. The setting of groves and gar- 
dens, luxuriant, interminable, deeply and beauti- 
fully green, covers a circuit of sixty miles. Beyond 
it, in sharpest contrast, rise the bare, fawn-coloured 
mountains, savage, intractable, desolate; away to 
the west, the snow-crowned bulk of Hermon; away 
to the east, the low-rolling hills and slumbrous haze 
of the desert. Under these flat roofs and white 
domes and long black archways of bazaars three 
hundred thousand folk are swarming. And there, 
half emerging from the huddle of decrepit modern 
buildings and partly hidden by the rounded shed of a 
bazaar, is the ruined top of a Roman arch of tri- 
umph, battered, proud, and indomitable. 

An hour later we are scrambling up a long, shaky 
ladder to the flat roofs of the joiners' bazaar, built 
close against the southern wall of the Mosque. We 
322 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

walk across the roofs and find the ancient south 
door of the Mosque, now filled up with masonry, and 
almost completely concealed by the shops above 
which we are standing. Only the entablature is 
visible, richly carved with garlands. Kneeling down, 
we read upon the lintel the Greek inscription in 
uncial letters, cut when the Mosque was a Christian 
church. The Moslems who are bowing and kneeling 
and stretching out their hands toward Mecca among 
the marble pillars below, know nothing of this in- 
scription. Few even of the Christian visitors to 
Damascus have ever seen it with their own eyes, for 
it is difficult to find and read. But there it still 
endures and waits, the bravest inscription in the 
world : " Thy kingdom, O Christy is a kingdom of all 
agesy and Thy dominion lasts throughout all genera- 
tions.'' 

From this eloquent and forgotten stone my mem- 
ory turns to the Hospital of the Edinburgh Medical 
Mission. I see the lovely garden full of roses, col- 
umbines, hlies, pansies, sweet-peas, strawberries 
just in bloom, I see the poor people coming in a 
323 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

steady stream to the neat, orderly dispensary; the 
sweet, clean wards with their spotless beds; the 
merciful candour and completeness of the operating- 
room; the patient, cheerful, vigorous, healing ways 
of the great Scotch doctor, who limps around on his 
broken leg to minister to the needs of other folk. 
I see the Uttle group of nurses and physicians gath- 
ered on Sunday evening in the doctor's parlour for 
an hour of serious, friendly talk, hopeful and happy. 
And there, amid the murmur of Abana's rills, and 
close to the confused and glittering mystery of the 
Orient, I hear the music of a simple hymn; 

**Dear Lord and Father of mankind. 

Forgive our foolish ways! 
Reclothe us in our rightful mind, 
In purer lives thy service find. 

In deeper reverence, praise. 

"O Sabbath rest by Galilee! 
O calm of hills above, 
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee 
The silence of eternity 
Interpreted by love! 

324 



THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 

"Drop thy still dews of quietness. 

Till all our strivings cease; 
Take from our souls the strain and stresSj 
And let our ordered lives confess 

The beauty of Thy peace." 



325 



OCT e 1S08 



